


we found you under the willow tree

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Babies, Childbirth (C-Section), Comfort Reading, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), M/M, Pregnancy, Slice of Life, Trans Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2020-02-04 16:02:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18607852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: Hank reaches up to take Connor’s hands, a wordless thing, and sits there at his husband’s feet. Feeling something like a humble pilgrim at the base of a brighter deity. If he leaned forward he could press an ear to the round curve of Connor’s belly hidden under the bib of his overalls, maybe listen to the distant sound of the ocean or the hushed assurance of all his second chances.





	1. little blue line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BIGHANK (piano_fire)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piano_fire/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea initially began as a ficlet I posted on tumblr a few months ago after riffing off a short prompt Shayz left me. Like all good things unexpectedly do, it eventually transformed itself into a whole little verse which in turn I’m continuing as a commission gift for Theo ❤
> 
> I’m doing my absolute best to get ongoing peer review from my trans friends and fellow authors while writing this series, so please bear with me. A big s/o to Rox (and Bri!) for taking the time to go through this first chapter and helping with your feedback!

  
Life has a funny way of happening when you least expect it.

Not that this is anything Connor hadn’t wanted or dreamily looked forward to in these past few years—no, quite the opposite. But looking at the grand scheme of his life, the big picture, where he began and where he drifted and where he was up until the moment he walked into the Detroit Police Department and then straight into the life of Hank Anderson…well; _unforeseen_ , maybe, would be a vast understatement.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub now, Connor gently shakes the plastic stick in his hand more like it’s a magic eight ball than a pregnancy test. The little blue line on the readout strip doesn’t change its fortune, though, and he drops his chin into the heel of his hand, unable to stop the smile from pulling his mouth up even though there’s nobody else in the bathroom to see it. Life sure happens, alright.

This isn’t the first positive result he’s seen over the past week and a half. There have been a half-dozen other tests, a new one nearly every day, and maybe Connor’s bordering on neurotic at this point, but if a combined background in psych and forensic chemistry has taught him anything, it’s that you test and retest for reliability.

Well—that, and he needed to be sure this is the real deal before he finally breaks the news on Hank’s 50th birthday tomorrow. They’ve gone too many months now without that little blue line to be heartbroken and let down now.

But Connor’s missed cycle has come and gone as of three days ago and he knows, deep down, that it’s true. _Wants_ it to be true, too, so damn much that he thinks the power of yearning might have just willed it into existence. And maybe he did, after going through the hormonal changes and the waiting and the doctor’s office check-ins—because he’s pregnant. With so much wanting they’d gone and made a baby.

Connor doesn’t know when, exactly, but he has his suspicions. They’ve been casually trying off and on, but there was that night he’d woken up in the dark to find Hank sitting slumped on the side of the bed, the never-ending fear of loss, the way they’d held on to each other so tightly afterward—not that it matters, really, except Connor knows that if the baby came to them in that moment, it was a moment undeniably born out of love.

Hank doesn’t know yet, but he will. Soon. Tomorrow. Connor’s fingers tremble in excitement and maybe a touch of something else as he takes the pregnancy test and seals it in a plastic bag for later before standing to wash his hands. He has a plan in motion; nothing big or extravagant, but he can’t stop himself from imagining the look on Hank’s face when he figures it out.

This is a big step for them but Connor’s ready. He knows his husband is, too, if in a different way that’s more difficult to describe. Hank has already loved and lost, and Connor has seen the impossible weight of losing Cole on his life since the day they met. It won’t ever heal or go away, not really, but he wants to think they can move onward from here into a new era of something they made together. That Hank can try again, and that fate won’t be so cruel this time.

He’s such a good man—brave and smart and impossibly kind despite the constant battle to turn away from old vices now that he’s sober. Grouchy and tempestuous at times, and Connor loves him with his whole heart for all of it. Hank will be a wonderful father. He already was, once, ten years ago.

Now, even at the midway point in his life, he can be one again.  
  
  


* * *  
  
  


Hank usually works graveyard on Wednesdays and Saturdays, rotating out shifts with Reed and Collins depending on the week or workload. Connor’s schedule doesn’t always coincide with Hank’s anymore—he works day shift most of the time, some nights when he’s called in for an emergency in the lab or on a scene. It was a midnight call to a homicide that brought Hank closer into his life that first month on the job.

But Collins had offered to cover Hank’s night shift, switching him back over to day, and he should be due home any minute now so they can ring in his 50th together. It’s half past eight and Detroit traffic tends to let up after dark even now; Connor paces around the house, cleaning and tidying things that don’t need it, and wonders if he’ll be able to keep his secret until tomorrow.

Sumo watches with vague disinterest from where he’s slumped in his bed, eyes following Connor back and forth across Hank’s living room. Every now and again his tail will thump once or he’ll heave out a sleepy sigh. Connor had moved in a year and some change ago after the wedding and there are little touches of him scattered throughout the house now where there was only empty space or dust before.

On the bookshelf Connor goes to straighten some old hardbacks and happens to glance to his right at a photo of Hank’s son. There aren’t many photos of him scattered throughout the house; in fact, this one and the dog-eared school picture that lives in Hank’s wallet may be the only two Connor’s ever seen that were actually printed. 

Cole smiles back at him with a familiar gap-toothed grin, happy and innocent. Sandy blond waves, big blue eyes. Eternally six years old. Connor’s seen this photo a thousand times but this time he feels his mouth pull down into a frown that trembles when he touches the corner of the metal frame. It’s dented on one side like it’d been thrown, maybe, once upon a time—but that was before Connor even came into the picture.

He never knew Cole and never will. He would’ve been in middle school this year, and thinking about the fact that the closest Connor’s even been to Hank’s son is when they drive out to the big cemetery outside Detroit city limits and put new flowers out around a little marble headstone a couple times each year is enough to make his eyes sting.

It’s overly sentimental, but he can’t help it when his hand automatically goes to his flat stomach and rests there while he breathes. Does the bone-deep fear that comes with being a parent start this soon?

Connor’s heart leaps into his throat when he hears keys jingle in the front door. He considers meeting Hank at the door and then decides against it—that’s usually Sumo’s job, and he doesn’t want to tip Hank off into thinking something is different. He snatches up the first magazine he finds on the coffee table and drops down into the recliner in the living room, casual as can be.

Hank brings the beginnings of autumn chill in with him, tired but sounding in good enough spirits while he lets Sumo whuff and prance around his feet. He ruffles the dog’s ears and locks the door behind him before throwing his keys down, eyes softly lighting up when he sees Connor in the living room.

“I’m fuckin’ beat,” Hank mumbles, scratching through his beard before leaning over to drop a kiss on top of Connor’s head. “Needed this sight for sore eyes.” He lingers there for a moment, still hunched over with his nose in Connor’s hair, forehead furrowing.

“Why are you reading the coupon clipper upside down?” he asks, peering into Connor’s lap at the magazine there. “Without your glasses.”

“Oh—uh,” Connor says, letting the clipper slap against his knees before turning it around the right way. “Looking at half-priced Brazilian butt lift before and afters, y’know. Don’t need a prescription to see those results.”

Hank laughs but narrows his eyes, then heads into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. Connor hears the cap pop off the Advil bottle and pills shaking out into Hank’s hand. There’s a long stretch of silence while he drinks long and deep, and then he comes back to sink down on the sofa with his bottom lip snared between his teeth.

“What do you want for dinner?” Connor asks abruptly, trying to head off Hank’s question before it comes. “I had a reservation uptown for tomorrow, but we can do whatever you want tonight.”

“I dunno,” Hank says, and then his eyes linger on the side of Connor’s face. “You’ve been acting kinda strange lately, babe.”

“There’s a new Thai place by the mall,” Connor tries, desperate, and knows this is why he’d never make a good field detective. Always good with the details but never playing the game. “I’m fine—just hungry and worried they’d try to keep you on call again or something.”

“Nah, Ben came in to cover and Reed’s on desk duty unless we catch something nasty,” Hank sighs, and some of the tension dissipates around them. His hand pushes down his thigh to grip just above his knee, gold ring glinting there in the light casting off the side table lamp. “I want you to tell me if there’s something going on, Con.”

Connor sighs, abandoning the unread magazine on the coffee table. He gets up and comes around to the couch, lightly touching Hank’s shoulder before dropping down next to him. “There’s not,” he says in a white lie as Hank pulls him close—nothing bad, anyway. “I want us to have a good day tomorrow. It’s not every day you turn 50.”

“You don’t have to take me anywhere,” Hank says, and then huffs out a laugh. “Maybe out to pasture.”

“Don’t say that,” Connor says, chest tight, leaning in to kiss the spot by Hank’s ear. “You’re worth celebrating, Hank Anderson. _Life_ in general is worth celebrating, too.”

“Huh.” That makes the tip of Hank’s tongue press against the gap between his teeth, thinking, and Connor is filled with dread for a moment that he’s gone and screwed the pooch. But then Hank is curving an arm around his middle, one big paw coming up to pop his thigh. “Thai food sounds pretty good, actually.”

“Then it’s a date,” Connor says, stealing one more kiss before he stands and reaches down to pull Hank up with him. “I’ll drive.”

  
  
  
  


The restaurant in question is a new fusion place, attractive and nicely lit for dinner hours, and everything is just as it should be—easygoing, casual, full of their usual gentle banter and back-and-forth as a couple until the appetizer gets cleared away and Connor takes the first spoonful of his tom yum soup.

Truly, it looks and smells delicious, and he hadn’t been lying when he told Hank he was starving. They’ve gone out for meals just like this one a hundred times before, but that first bite of prawn makes his stomach curdle and Connor’s eyes water as he gags, covers his mouth with a napkin, and makes himself swallow.

Some Pad Thai falls from between Hank’s chopsticks as he looks onward, vaguely alarmed, and makes to stand.

“Fine,” Connor croaks, smiling, waving his husband off with the napkin still clenched in his fist. “Just too hot.”

“You sure?” Hank asks, and reaches for Connor’s spoon to take a bite of the steaming soup himself. “Let it cool down for a minute.”

Connor lets it cool down for the next forty-five minutes, frankly, unable to stomach anything but spoonfuls of broth and herb taken from the edge of his bowl. That had been—unexpected, maybe, considering how early things are, and he’s mortified he hadn’t thought of shellfish souring his stomach earlier. Hank polishes off his plate without a problem and sits quietly while their waiter transfers Connor’s uneaten tom yum into a takeout container.

“Let’s get back home,” he says before Connor can open his mouth, holding his coat open while Connor slips his arms into it and tries not to shake with nerves. “Think I’ll drive this time.”

Connor tries to talk about things happening in the lab at work, an ongoing homicide they’ve both dealt with that dropped a couple weeks prior, but it’s all surface level. His mind is laser-focused on not ruining the surprise and Hank’s mind seems to be elsewhere, answering in soft monosyllables and grunts the whole way back to the house.

He throws some kibble in Sumo’s dish after they lock up for the night and then moves past Connor, padding down the hall toward the bathroom. The door shuts and the shower turns on, and Connor leans in the kitchen doorway with a sigh, head thumping back against the wall.

Without anything else to do, he goes and changes into his pajamas before turning down their bed. Looks into the rumpled sheets and hopes to find an easier way to go about all this there. There’s a tiny life stirring somewhere inside him but he can’t ask them for help, either. Connor doesn’t know why he’s so nervous when this baby is so incredibly _wanted_ —something he asked Hank for, and Hank only took his hands and told him he was ready to try.

He sits up against the headboard and opens his bedside drawer to pull out the plastic baggie with the pregnancy test again. Checks the result like he hasn’t already done it a thousand times and closes his eyes, breathing deep.

“Hey,” Hank’s voice says just as he walks into the bedroom, damp and shirtless with his pajama pants low on his belly. Connor’s eyes snap open and he buries the plastic baggie in his lap, trying to appreciate such a welcome sight even if it’s short-lived in its soothing familiarity, because Hank only takes enough time to set his phone down on the charger before he sinks onto the mattress and turns to look at Connor with a cloudy expression.

“There’s something wrong,” he says, the bed creaking under his weight as he shifts around. “You’ve gotta talk to me, baby. I may be a detective but you know I’m not too great with these kinds of guessing games.”

Connor stays mum, trying to find the right words, but Hank beats him to the punch. “Is it—are you worried we aren’t trying enough, or something?” he asks, reaching up to palm the back of his neck. “Because you know once guys start getting my age, well, the boys don’t swim as well as they used to, and…uh, I don’t exactly _want_ to go jerk off in a sterile cup for a sperm count, but you know I’d do it in a heartbeat if you think we need to.”

Connor lets out a laugh, weak and somewhat strangled high in his throat. “Your sperm count is fine, Hank,” he says, and then bites into his bottom lip to keep it from quivering.

Hank colors a bit but levels Connor with a sideways look. “You don’t have to flatter me, babe, I know—hold on. What the hell is going on, Connor?”

Connor’s heart clenches and jumps, and in that moment he knows he’s done for. “I wanted to wait until your birthday tomorrow,” he rasps, gathering up the edge of the blanket in one hand and twisting it there in his lap. “I had it all planned out, of course.”

“Huh,” Hank says, a slightly quizzical tilt still there on his brow. The detective gears in his brain must be churning a mile a minute and Connor feels lightheaded. “You know I’m not much of one for surprises.”

“Well, I think you’ll like this one,” Connor says, only a little breathless, and when he looks up with his eyes shining Hank pushes all the air out of his lungs like the tide receding before a tsunami rolls in. Connor’s other hand finally appears from where it’d been hidden under the covers and produces the plastic sandwich baggie, god help him, with their positive pregnancy test inside.

Hank doesn’t need to look at the result to know what it says, because they both know he can see the truth just by looking into Connor’s eyes.

“Happy Birthday, Papa,” Connor says quietly, reaching for Hank’s hand. He tries for another laugh but it fizzles out somewhere in the middle, never quite destined to last because Hank’s too busy closing the distance between them to pull Connor tight against him.

They’re both quiet for a time, simply leaning there against each other. Hank’s broad shoulders only shake a little bit and Connor kisses behind his ear, sweet and soft, heart fluttering enough to burst.

“How long have you known?” Hank asks eventually, voice a rough sound against Connor’s neck, still holding his husband tight.

“About a week,” Connor whispers, wilted with relief. “I—I wanted to be sure.”

Hank nods, reaching up to scrub a hand across his face with a shuddering sort of sigh. “Christ, here I thought somebody was dying,” he says with a tiny laugh. And then, more slowly, “You’re sure we can do this?”

Connor’s never been surer of anything in his life, maybe other than the night Hank asked him to marry him. “I know we can,” he says, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt when Hank takes his face between his hands and kisses him.

   
  



	2. lavender

 

The morning begins shortly before dawn with the thud of two socked feet hitting the floor and a bang as the bathroom door hits the wall, then the sound of somebody retching up the entire contents of their stomach into the toilet bowl.

It’s Hank’s day off but he withdraws himself from under the covers, bleary-eyed, and sits there on the edge of the bed. The bathroom light must be on because he can see it casting a golden slant of shadow down the darkened hallway. Connor’s side of the bed is warm to the touch and Hank waits a few more moments, unsure—not wanting to hover, but still in the process of deciding whether or not he needs to give his husband ample space to be sick in.

Hank’s just moving to stand up on creaking joints when he hears his name being called from the bathroom. Just one feeble, hoarse word echoed like it was spoken into the porcelain commode. “ _Hank._ ”

“M’comin’ babe, hold on,” he says, already halfway there, and when he turns into the bathroom, Connor’s on his knees in front of the toilet with his forearm braced across the seat, head slumped in the crook of his elbow.

Hank doesn’t say anything at first, simply walks over and grimaces at the mess in the toilet before pushing the sweaty curls away from Connor’s forehead, dragging his fingers down to the back of his neck.

“I’m dying,” Connor croaks.

“Do you want me to call in and tell them you’re not coming today?” Hank asks, thumb brushing through the short hairs at Connor’s nape. Even if the palm of his hand is hot, Connor seems to need the grounding weight there.

“I’ll be fine,” he insists, panting a little shallowly. “I just need a few— _fuck_.”

He heaves again but there’s nothing left to push up, stomach clenching and twisting around nothing as he manages a wet cough. The nausea makes his teeth clench while tears and snot run down his face. Connor only moans and drops his head back down against the toilet seat.

“I’ll let Jeff know you’ll be late at best, but we’re not promising anything,” Hank says quietly, stepping away to go get his phone from the bedroom.

When he’s gone Connor can’t do anything but stay slumped where he’s kneeling on the floor, legs shaking from trying to stay upright. This isn’t the worst he’s ever felt, but it’s pretty high up there on the list.

Nobody else knows he’s pregnant, save for Hank—not Richard, not Amanda, and certainly not anybody at work. Maybe it’s easier to stay home for now but Connor knows he’ll eventually run out of sick days and have to meet with Fowler, at least, to break the news. His head is already spinning with queasiness and the idea of trying to juggle maternity allowances with the people in HR makes it that much worse.

“Jeff said to take it easy,” Hank says when he walks back in, moving around Connor to sit on the edge of the tub. “Chloe’s coming in at ten to pick up a few extra hours of overtime in the lab.”

Connor nods, still hunched over the toilet, more exhausted now than truly sick. His t-shirt is stuck between his shoulder blades where he’s sweat through it and Hank runs a hand down his back before turning to twist on the bath faucet.

“C’mon sweetheart,” he says, hooking an arm around Connor’s side. “Can’t stay down here forever—you’re shivering.”

“Don’t need a bath,” Connor mumbles, even though it’s kind of exactly what he wants right now. Hank knows him too well.

“The makeout session you just had with the toilet begs to differ,” Hank says with a grunt, helping Connor stand before he drops the toilet seat down and settles his husband on top of it. “It’ll help you feel better.”

Hank’s fingers skim Connor’s clammy skin as he takes the hem of his shirt and works it over his head, then stoops over to check how hot the water is. He shakes his hand off and reaches for some of the salt soak Connor likes before dumping it in.

The aromatic smell of lavender blooms on the air, heady but not so strong that it makes Connor feel unwell. He closes his eyes and listens to the bath run, head tipping forward to rest against Hank’s belly.

“Why are you so good to me,” he mumbles. He may fall asleep right here before he even gets a chance to get his pants off and soak in the tub.

“Because I love you,” Hank says without missing a beat, fingers carding through Connor’s hair again. That would be reason enough, Connor thinks, though Hank goes quiet in a way that suggests he’s not done talking. But the moment passes for now, carried up and away on the curls of steam filling the bathroom, and when Hank tugs the drawstring on Connor’s pajama pants he slowly stands and lets them fall down around his ankles.

“Cold,” he says, teeth clamped together again around phantom nausea, but Hank is there to help him ease down into the bath. Connor sinks into the hot water and sighs in immediate relief, letting it lap up over his thighs and lower stomach where gooseflesh had started prickling.

Hank makes no move to leave, though Connor’s surprised when he folds himself onto the floor next to the tub and leans against the wall, long legs bent at the knee so he fits in the small space by the toilet. He closes his eyes and blows out a soft sigh, reaching up to rub at the some of the sleep still left in his eyes. Dawn is just beginning to brighten the sky outside.

“I know you don’t need a chaperone,” Hank says before Connor can say anything, cracking open one blue eye to peer at him while the corner of his mouth twitches. “Just wanted to sit with you for a minute.”

Connor loves him so much sometimes that it makes him dizzy, and that’s not the nausea talking. He sits up some to slow the faucet to a faint trickle and then sinks low again, one hand come up to splay over the flat softness of his belly. There’s a few moles scattered there around his navel and hipbone but no sign of a baby yet, still too small to have grown any bigger than a tangerine.

“Are you excited to tell anyone,” he says, voice only a gentle rasp in the quiet bathroom. They both know just what he means.

Hank draws in a deep breath and blows it out. “I’m excited for whoever you’re excited to tell,” he says, and then tries again. “I mean, Jeff and Ben are some of my oldest friends. I know they’ll be happy for me—for us.”

Connor reaches for the bar of soap on the ledge and suds it up some before idly running it over his arms and chest, mind elsewhere. “I know our friends will be supportive, but I’m admittedly kind of worried about how the department at large is going to…handle the news.”

That makes Hank wake up a little more. “If anybody has anything to say other than congratulations, they can come talk to me directly,” he says, firmly enough that it makes a little jolt of something primal pull low in Connor’s gut. “And you know that if I don’t take care of something myself, Fowler wouldn’t hesitate to rake somebody’s ass over the coals for an HR infraction.”

“I know, honey,” Connor says gently, then manages a weak laugh. “I was more worried about them not letting me work scenes out in the field anymore.”

“I wouldn’t want you out there after a certain point either, Con, if I’m being honest,” Hank says, some of the fierceness drained out of his voice even if Connor can still hear the protective streak loud and clear. He sits up and scoots closer until he’s flush with the side of the tub, arm braced there along the edge, eyes making a light sweep over Connor’s body—not wanting, simply admiring. Connor’s not modest about being nude in front of his husband by any stretch, but Hank’s gaze on him still make him feel warm.

“It’s bad enough thinking about something happening to you,” Hank says quietly, and then reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “It scares the shit out of me, thinking about something happening to you and the baby both.”

Connor manages a weak smile, bringing one wet hand up out of the bath to touch under Hank’s chin. “Something could happen to me anywhere, though.”

“Don’t say that,” Hank says with a brittle laugh, though he leans over the lip of the tub to press a whiskery kiss to Connor’s cheek. “I’m going to lock you in the lab at work in a full-body hazmat suit.”

Connor wrinkles his nose and presses a damp handprint against Hank’s chest, leaning close to drop his head against the ceramic, shivering pleasantly when Hank kisses the back of his neck this time.

“You ready to go back to bed?” Hank hums, and Connor nods, making quick work of washing his face while Hank slowly pulls himself up off the floor with some grunting and ado. He shakes open a towel and holds out a hand, wrapping Connor up as soon as he’s back on his feet again.

“I should powder you up like a biscuit,” Hank murmurs, pulling the drain and toweling Connor off. He disappears down the hall to let Sumo out while Connor makes quick work of brushing his teeth and combing his hair. Hank’s reappeared in their bedroom and waiting with one of his old t-shirts when Connor pads back in to find him.

There’s an unspoken exchange and soft shuffle of movement while Hank takes the towel and Connor pulls Hank’s shirt over his head, slipping on a pair of briefs and socks Hank had laid out for him. They fold themselves back under the covers as the clock steadily creeps closer to eight, and Hank immediately pulls Connor in close to tangle their legs together, his skin still balmy-warm and smelling faintly of lavender.

“We won’t be able to go back to bed like this every morning,” Connor mumbles against Hank’s collarbone, breathing already evening out as he edges closer to sleep. “I’ll have to power through the pain.”

“Not today, babe,” Hank says around a wide yawn, nosing into the curls on top of Connor’s head. “You’re all mine.”  



	3. heartbeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More sweetness! General warning, some of Hank's thoughts follow an old string of melancholy back during the days he didn't want to live anymore after Cole's passing. He's happy & doing fine now, of course, just immersed in some brief reflection on how things used to be.

  
Burnished autumn gradually gives way to winter, and by the second week of December’s frost there’s a fully-fledged bump hiding under the chunky knit sweaters Connor’s taken to wearing to work under his coat. Small but unmistakable—Connor marvels at it whenever he’s home in front of the long mirror in their bedroom, turning this way and that with his shirt pulled up over his stomach.

As for Hank, he can’t keep his hands off it.

He’ll often sneak up from behind when Connor’s getting dressed in the morning or fresh out of the shower, snaking his arms around his husband’s waist to splay those big hands of his around the little swell of Connor’s belly. Hank’s affection helps alleviate some of the backburner stress that comes with the image of the changing body in the mirror—always there with a kiss dropped against Connor’s shoulder and a sweet word or two murmured in his ear.

This morning is no different, save for the fact that they’re both off from work and up early for a very special appointment.

“I’m nervous,” Connor says, smoothing both hands over his sweater in the mirror. He’s been ready to go for at least twenty minutes, but Hank is still fresh out of the shower and busy flipping through shirts in the closet. “Hank. Are you nervous?”

“Uh, maybe a little bit,” Hank says, shrugging his favorite blue and mustard striped button-down over his undershirt as he walks over to stand behind Connor in front of the mirror. “But in a good way. I think you’re more excited than nervous, babe.”

Connor blows out a sigh and reaches up to adjust his glasses while Hank’s fingers stay busy with his shirt buttons. He watches them in the mirror, eyes fixated on the gold of Hank’s wedding band, and then turns away from their shared reflection to find there’s the faintest tremble there.

Hank’s good at holding his own at poker, arguably one of the toughest shells to crack on the force, but after their years spent working and living so close together Connor knows how to pick out the signs. His husband, who didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at an armed hostage situation with ten gunmen in downtown Detroit two years ago but whose strong voice shook when he took Connor’s hand at the altar on their wedding day.

Connor’s brand new at this but Hank’s been through it once before, and no doubt the memory of another day just like this a decade ago is weighing heavy on his mind this morning. Maybe Connor’s nerves are bundled up in anticipation, but at least he doesn’t have to weigh the moment of meeting this baby against one he lost.

“I _am_ excited,” he decides, reaching up to lay a hand against Hank’s chest where they stand together. Connor’s voice comes out in a gentle rasp after he laughs, feeling Hank’s fingers snake up to wrap around his, thumb pressed into the heart of Connor’s palm. “I’m so happy I—I can’t think about anything else. I’m ready to see our baby.”

Hank brushes a kiss across Connor’s knuckles and nods before lowering their hands. “Me too, kid,” he says quietly. “But if we run any later we’re going to miss your appointment.”

“Oh!” Connor says, and then hisses a much fouler word when he glances down at his watch. Hank doesn’t even have his shoes on yet but Connor’s already gathering up their coats and stuffing his wallet in his pocket, headed fast for the front door.

“Come on, Henry!” he calls, and Hank smiles when he hears a _whuff_ from Sumo and the thump of his tail in the foyer. “We’ve got somebody important to meet.”

He catches his own eye in the mirror while he buckles his watch around his wrist, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out again before going to join Connor on their way to the car.  
  


* * *  
  


Hank is—not nervous, per se. Nervous isn’t the right word for such a wide scope of emotion that runs so deep. It’s not so much that he’s still grieving, because that’s not true either. His grieving days are long over, even if he’ll feel Cole’s stark absence from his life until the day he draws his final breath. But if life is one long winding highway, even when you move forward you can still look over your shoulder and take a big long look at where you’ve been.

Ten years ago, in the weeks after his son died, Hank wouldn’t have been able to fathom this future for himself, much less the journey he’s about to embark on with Connor. In those days he couldn’t even see into tomorrow past the bottom of a bottle in front of his face, because Hank from a decade ago had resigned himself to dying at 40. There was no other option or way out—he’d drink himself to death or put a gun in his mouth, and that would be it. Lights out. Done.

Holding Connor’s hand now as they sit in a dimly-lit sonogram room at the doctor’s office, Hank can’t help but be just a little bit amazed. Part of him feels like he’s dreaming, maybe, even though the past few months have been so wonderfully real. He’s alive, living in this moment. Breathing. Listening to his husband fuss good-naturedly about the creepy Mother Goose wallpaper border tacked up around the ceiling. He loves Connor so much it’s hard to believe there was ever a time where he would’ve denied himself this possibility by taking his own life, though he knows that, too, was once all too real.

His thoughts are snapped back to the present when the smiling tech walks in and introduces herself as Lucy before pulling on a pair of gloves and rousing the sonogram machine. “Mr. and Mr. Anderson,” she says brightly, dropping onto a swiveling stool and rolling closer to where Connor’s reclining on the ultrasound table. “This is baby number one, right? You must be so excited.”

“First for me,” Connor says with a tiny smile of his own, shifting a little so the paper smock tucked into the waistband of his slacks rustles. His eyes narrow and sparkle some behind his glasses, mischievous like a brown-eyed fox. “We’ll have to talk about the next three later in private.”

The tips of Hank’s ears burn scarlet even though Lucy is all smiles as she helps fold Connor’s sweater up and gets out a bottle of medical gel from the warmer. “That’s what we like to hear,” she says, and then swipes a cursory hand over his stomach before squirting some of the blue substance out. “Know that feels a little funky, but at least it’s not cold. Alright then, here we go.”

As the probe glides over Connor’s belly Hank can only lock eyes with his husband. Lucy tilts the screen around and taps a few buttons on the keyboard, and if Hank were to look up he’d see that she’d labeled the first still image with _feet_.

Connor squeezes his hand and turns to look at the display, mouth parting open in happy surprise when the tech moves the probe around and he suddenly finds the silhouette of their baby there.

“Oh, Hank,” he says faintly, sagging some on the table. “Look.”

Hank does look up, then, bottom lip snared between his teeth, though his expression breaks into a gap-toothed smile the second he sees the tiny face and hands on the ultrasound.

“Spinal cord looks good and I’m not seeing any lack of amniotic fluid,” Lucy says, pausing to take another still image. She glances over her shoulder and flashes them a grin, braids moving as she turns to look at the screen again. The baby’s right hand has curled up into a fist and she takes a picture of that, too. “Seems like you’ve got a little fighter on your hands.”

Hank and Connor watch as Lucy shows them each new image—everything perfect, everything working exactly as it should be as far as she can tell. Before she shows them the heart chambers, she pulls out a different smaller attachment and hooks it up to the ultrasound machine.

It takes a moment to find, but when the doppler picks up the sound of their child’s heartbeat Hank feels like he may fall out of his chair, all the tension cut and bled from his body.

“Damn,” he croaks, eyes glued to the screen. “There it is, babe.”

Connor only nods and smiles through some wet-sounding laughter, reaching up to swipe a finger under his glasses.

Lucy gives them another few moments and takes her last couple still images of the baby’s heart before she pops the big question. “Would you like to know the gender or are we keeping it a surprise?”

Hank and Connor share a fleeting look, Connor’s eyebrows high on his forehead. “Do you—do you think we should find out now?”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Hank says a little breathlessly, taking Connor’s hand again. Christ knows he’d be happy either way, but he’s not sure if he wants to find out in this small room. He needs some air. He needs Connor to be off this ultrasound table so he can wrap his arms around him. “Whatever you want, Con.”  

Lucy smiles knowingly when Connor asks her to seal the printout up in an envelope for them to take when they leave. She cleans his belly off with a paper towel and bids them farewell until Connor’s next appointment, and as they walk back out into the frigid December air Connor clutches the plain legal envelope like it holds the key to the universe.

He snags the pocket of Hank’s coat and tips his head up for a kiss when they get to the car, the paper sandwiched there between them along with the tiny swell of Connor’s belly.

“I don’t know if I can wait,” Connor says a little bashfully, pink-cheeked in the cold wind. “I know it doesn’t really matter, but—still, y’know. Just between us.” His expression goes stern and he screws up his face with mild distaste before snorting. “As if we needed one of those bullshit parties with pink and blue confetti.”

Hank huffs out a laugh that fogs warm around them as he looks down at the envelope in Connor’s hands. “Go ahead,” he says gently, touching the back of Connor’s elbow.

They both watch as Connor breaks the seal and pulls the paper free, unfolding it there with them still huddled in the doctor’s parking lot. Lucy had made it easy—right there on the printout is a dash of shocking purple highlighter drawn in a heart around the words _It’s a Girl!_

Connor laughs, high and bright and beautiful, smiling as Hank pulls him back against his chest to drop another kiss into his hair. He keeps him tucked there as the wind blows, silently vowing to anybody or anything out there listening that he’ll keep both his husband and daughter safe.

“She can be our little secret for now,” Connor says, carefully folding the paper and slipping it back into his coat pocket. “Everybody else can wait for the surprise.”

Hank nods, caught somewhere between exhausted and exhilarated now that they’re coming down from the wake of the morning’s news. There’s still the whole day ahead, miserably cold and dreary outside, but he fully intends to take Connor out for lunch and then take him home and straight to bed—though truth be foretold, they won’t make it quite that far before Hank peels Connor out of his clothes and makes love to him there on the bedroom floor.  

They have plenty of time to spare, but already he looks forward to meeting his baby girl.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on twitter at @honkforhankcon! I have my tumblr and ko-fi pages linked there as well :)


	4. mourning doves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief and somewhat metaphorical sex scene at the end; it's really not that explicit, I promise! Trying my damndest to keep this Mature rating lol.
> 
> Thank you to Leo and Bee for both looking over this chapter for me :)

  
  
It’d taken a few long nights and some tense back-and-forth across the kitchen table, but eventually they come to a decision. It’s finally time to let Hank’s old place by the canal go and start anew somewhere different.

Connor doesn’t say as much out loud, but sometimes he feels like Cole’s memory haunts the other place. Not because Cole ever lived there—Hank and his wife had sold the midcentury ranch house where their little boy grew up within two weeks, washed their hands of it and practically given it away so they could flee and not look back—, but because it’s where Hank was during the worst of it all. Where Connor might’ve lost him, if he hadn’t showed up that night in the rain years ago, arms full of sodden case files, and found Hank sitting alone at his kitchen table with a revolver and a single photo.

They’re so much happier now, together and on a new path, but that old hurt and fear still lives in the darker corners and scuttles through the walls. Sometimes on rainy nights Connor hears it trickling down the roof and pattering against the window panes, and all he can do is clutch Hank tighter and try not to think about the what-ifs.

He doesn’t want their child to grow up in a house full of old ghosts, and a handful of days into the New Year the same realization had dawned on Hank, something grim spreading across his face while he looked into the kitchen and thought back on what he would’ve lost if he’d pulled that trigger one more time.

In the first full week of February, they visit a little two-story house the color of a gull’s wing just outside the city limits, nestled in a sleepy neighborhood full of old-timers and small families. The mailbox is painted blue and has a clutch of dormant jasmine growing around the post in an unruly vine. There’s no cliché white picket fence, but the yard is big enough for Sumo to break into a clean run and spend his twilight years lounging in the sunshine and rolling in the grass. Connor had taken one look at it from the driveway and said, belly stuck out with his hands pressed into the small of his back, “I think it’s this one, Hank.” He’d been right.

Maybe moving house when you’re seven months pregnant is no easy task, at least until a weekend later when the doorbell rings on Saturday morning and everybody from the DPD who wasn’t working that day shows up with an armload of cardboard boxes and a dolly.

Niles had meandered in a little while later with coffee and doughnuts, tactful as ever while he critiqued Connor’s preferred cleaning supplies en route to storing them in a plastic bin, but they ate and laughed while they packed. By late that evening nearly every box or stick of furniture that could fit in the back of a pickup truck was moved across town to the new house.

By the time they get back to the old place to spend their last night before closing on Monday, Hank’s dead on his feet and Connor can’t even bend over to untie his shoes. He sinks down on the bed, one of the last big things they have left to move, and lays there while Hank lifts Connor’s right sneaker in the air and wearily tugs at the laces.

“It feels so empty,” Connor murmurs, watching as Hank throws his shoe over one shoulder so it slaps against the floor with a strange echo. He looks around the corners of the room, dark save for the paltry reach of the closet’s single lightbulb, and brings a hand up to settle over the roundness of his belly beneath one of Hank’s old band shirts. “Do you think you’ll miss it at all?”

Hank drops Connor’s other shoe on the floor and peels his socks off for good measure before flopping face-first onto the bed next to his husband with a groan. His broad back rises and falls with a deep sigh, and then he turns so his cheek is pressed into the duvet, eyes flicking up to meet Connor’s.

They watch each other for a moment, waiting as Sumo pads into the room and harrumphs down onto the floor with a sigh of his own. Connor thinks about the many firsts they’d found together in this house, quietly haunted as it was. First kiss. First place they’d walked over the threshold together after getting married; they’d meant to drive to the hotel after the ceremony, but Connor had forgotten his damn toiletry bag at home. They’d fucked for the first time in his old loft across town, but they’d held each other through the night for the first time in this room. They’d made their daughter here, too, against all other odds of what the house had seen through the years.

If only walls could tell a story.

Connor’s crying before he can really stop himself. The baby hormones make him a wreck on the worst days and have him tiptoeing the fine ledge on others. Hank smiles and tiredly shakes his head but reaches up swipe at Connor’s cheek anyway, thumbing a stray tear away.

“What’s wrong?” he asks gently, letting Connor thread their fingers together. “I thought this was a happy thing—we wanted to move. Fresh start, new perspective. No old bones rattling around in the closet.”

“It _is_ a happy thing,” Connor croaks, leaning over to press his face against Hank’s back so his voice is muffled there. Hank smells like sweat, dust, and hard work, but Connor breathes him in anyway, comforted. “There’s just so much that’s happened here.”

Hank squeezes Connor’s hand, still laying there with his face in the blankets. He sounds like he’s already halfway asleep. “The way I see it, babe, I’m taking everything I need and leaving the rest of it behind,” he says. “And all I need is you, Sumo, and the baby. That’s it.”

Connor smiles at that, sniffling some. “That’s all?” he asks.

“That’s all,” Hank echoes. “Unless we forgot that box of Ho-Hos I hid in the cabinet above the fridge—gonna need those, too.”

Hank laughs rich and deep when Connor pulls their hands apart to smack his ass with an affronted sound. “You old devil!” he says, and then goes suspiciously quiet. “Damn it, Hank…I was looking for those.”

“I know you were,” Hank says, rolling over with another laugh and then reaching up to pull Connor back down with him.

And if one of the last things these walls hear is Hank’s laughter, Connor thinks, leaving it all behind as it is now was worth it. They have another home waiting to hold new moments and memories; this one has held more than enough.  
  


* * *  
  
  


Slowly but surely, the new place starts to feel a little bit like home.

They unpack their furniture, their boxes, their books, and a plastic bin full of old tax documents Hank had marked _IRS BULLSHIT_ in black marker. The old bedframe broke when the movers pulled it off the back of the truck and a replacement is on its way from some warehouse in Texas, so they’re still sleeping on a mattress in the master bedroom floor for the time being. The guest bedroom is a blank canvas with white walls and the nursery is in a similar state, though the side window looks out on a tentatively blooming dogwood tree full of tiny pink buds.

A pair of mourning doves come to roost there sometimes in the evening, and Connor watches them from where he sits on the nursery floor those first few days—placid and dark-eyed, feathers the color of a foggy coastline at dawn. They neck and huddle together on the branches, lovely in their quiet gentleness. Maybe in the spring they’ll build a nest around the dogwood flowers, and Connor thinks of them when he picks up a soft grey paint swatch at the hardware store, then plucks a different pale lavender card from the next row and holds them together.

He shows Hank, not expecting too much by way of interest, even though Hank looks relieved when he turns away from the bright colors he’d been staring at in the nursery display. Their cart already holds two other paint cans—a muted shade of silvery blue and then clean white to cover the avocado green in the upstairs bathroom.

“Those are pretty,” he says gruffly, but because he said _pretty_ Connor knows he means it. “Calming kinda colors, you think?”

Connor wonders if he should tell Hank about the mourning doves and then nods anyway, holding the colors against his belly like a winning poker hand he’s trying to keep hidden. “I was hoping as much.”

While the paint is being mixed Hank lingers in front of the long wall of paint swatches, hands deep in his jacket pockets. He only pulls one out to touch a shade of pale yellow, soft and buttery, connecting the color to a forgotten memory.

“Cole’s first room was yellow,” Hank says, and then slips his hand back into his pocket. There’s no old ache or hurt in his voice when he speaks but Connor steps over and gently plucks the color out for himself anyway, feeling selfish in a silly way, as if he’s garnered some tangible part of the little boy he never met. It just feels nice to hold in his hand.

“Do you think he’d be excited to be a big brother?” Connor asks. He doesn’t mean to say it here, in the paint department at this loud hardware store, but it slips out anyway. Hank doesn’t stiffen and his face doesn’t turn cloudy, but he does blink as a tiny smile twitches at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” he says softly, looking down at their feet before his eyes drag up to land on Connor’s stomach, the bump none too easily hidden under his sweater and coat anymore. “He’d probably love to tell her some of his little stories.”

Connor’s heart leaps into his throat. He feels like he’s learned more about Cole today than he has in the past two years. “What stories?”

“Oh, you know,” Hank says, shrugging one shoulder. “The cute shit kids like to write. I may still have one saved somewhere.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime,” Connor says quietly, watching his husband heft their finished paint cans off the counter and set them down in the cart. “I used to do stuff like that when I was small—write my own little books, draw the pictures and all. Sometimes Niles even helped me.”

Hank lets out a snort. “I find it hard to believe you let your brother touch _any_ of your ingenious projects, babe.” Connor worries he’s changed the subject for a moment, but then Hank sighs and cuts his eyes over. “I’ll look in the garage this weekend if you want—see if any of Cole’s school stuff is out there.”

It’s one of those promises Hank could easily fall back on, Connor knows, but even then it’s still progress. New and tentative growth, perhaps, where there had been only a severed branch before.

  
  
  


Most of the paint goes up in a day but the rest of the nursery is slower to grow and blossom around it, still waiting to unfurl like the sleeping dogwood tree. The crib remains in its box, some shelves still unhung on the floor next to a little pot of faux lavender and an old copy of Peter Rabbit. Connor brings home things one at a time over the next few weeks like he’s furnishing his own nest, adding small touches here or there—baby linens with tiny owls printed on them, a stuffed elephant, and a glass butterfly night light that shines amber in the dark.

Hank insists on painting the walls himself, cracking open both windows before he’ll even let Connor think about coming into the room. Connor sits on a cushion in the middle of the floor with his crochet hook and a halfway-finished hat for a while, a temporary stalemate, and then throws it to the side in a huff before going to find a clean paintbrush.

“There’s no harm in me helping you, Hank, honestly,” Connor fusses, scooting around the baseboards with his brush and little dish of paint. His leave from work starts in a few weeks and Hank knows he’s both relieved and anxious about taking time away—Connor without a case to throw himself into is like a bloodhound with a scent but no sense of direction.

It’d be easy to argue about paint fumes, but it’s easier to watch Connor push his glasses up his nose with his thumb while he works and gets little spatters of white all over the knees of his denim overalls. Barefoot and pregnant, gorgeous in the soft light slanting through the nursery windows, gold pooling in the dips of his collarbones and along the fine muscles in his arms. Hank leans there against his paint roller and wonders, for maybe the millionth time, how he got so damn lucky.

That evening, when their painting is mostly done and the day’s stretched itself out into dusk, Connor puts the rest of their takeout leftovers in the fridge and rinses the two plates they’d eaten off of before resting them in the dish rack. He doles out Sumo’s dinner before peeking out into the living room to look for Hank where he’d last seen him messing with the TV, but the television is off and Hank’s nowhere to be found.

“Hank?” he calls, shuffling down the hall to check the guest bathroom and then the little office nook. The rooms are all dark save for the dimmed overhead light in the nursery across from their bedroom.

Hank is sitting cross-legged on the floor facing the window that overlooks the dogwood tree. Night sounds are slowly wafting in from the yard below, little cricket chirps and even the errant hoot of some unseen owl. From where he stands in the doorway, Connor can see Hank watching the mourning doves where they’ve come to light in the branches for the night. There’s something in his lap, small and stuffed—a child’s plush toy. His eyes are at ease but his jaw has taken on that familiar shape that tells Connor he’s turning something over in his head.

Which is true—Hank had come in here to think, only having noticed the dove pair by chance. Strange, though, sitting in a room that will soon belong to his daughter. He holds one of the stuffed toys Connor bought for the baby and remembers the last empty child’s room he was in, how different that day had been from the gentle ease and sense of accomplishment to be found in this one. Sometimes it still doesn’t seem real.

But the best he can do in these dreamlike spells of doubt is be present and live in each moment as it unfolds. No dwelling in the past, and no anxious hand-wringing about the future. Hank’s not a restless man by nature, but when it comes to his children—this new baby, still unborn, getting closer to meeting them every day—things are different.

He doesn’t startle when Connor’s fingers brush his shoulder, both their eyes still on the sleeping doves. Hank reaches up to take Connor’s hands, a wordless thing, and sits there at his husband’s feet. Feeling something like a humble pilgrim at the base of a brighter deity. If he leaned forward he could press an ear to the round curve of Connor’s belly hidden under the bib of his overalls, maybe listen to the distant sound of the ocean or the hushed assurance of all his second chances.

And Connor may be tall, but he’s not so big that he can’t snugly fit in Hank’s lap. He folds himself down with some ado and a little grunt until he’s nestled there in the cradle between his husband’s crossed legs, back against Hank’s chest, both of them content to sit together on the floor while the day outside grows darker.  

“I can’t wait to hold you both,” Hank says once he’s fully pulled Connor into his arms, nose and mouth pressed against the curve of his shoulder. He sets the stuffed elephant to one side, its shiny eyes reflecting the last dregs of daylight peeking in through the open window.  
  
“You already are,” Connor says, taking Hank’s hands and bringing them up to rest over his belly. He tips his head back, baring his throat and sighing sweetly when Hank kisses the soft skin there, whiskers tickling the underside of his jaw. He’s a little sore from painting and it’ll be hell getting off this floor again, but it’s worth it. Connor twists around and takes his face, cool fingertips pressed against the steady pulse threaded under Hank’s ear as their lips brush together.

“Take me to bed,” Connor says, quiet, voice full of gentle wanting. Tired as he may be, there’s nothing else Hank wants to do more than that.

He kneels at the side of their mattress where it rests on the floor, helping unhook Connor’s overalls one buckle and button at a time. Only the bedside lamp shines on the walls, still bare and unpainted with no art or frames hung on them yet. Hank pays no mind to any of that—his eyes only want to soak in the sight of Connor.

It’s been more than a week since they last took time for each other like this, with all the moving and the painting and the stress of packing your whole life into brown boxes and then unpacking it again. Connor spreads his legs as soon as Hank tugs his little briefs down over his thighs and tosses them somewhere on the floor. The elastic has left pink marks under the curve of his belly and by his hips, and Hank touches them before leaning over to kiss one, thumb on his other hand already teasing where Connor wants his attention most.

“God, Hank,” Connor whines, twisting a handful of Hank’s t-shirt in his hand. “Take this off and get up here so I can ride you.”

Hank gets up off the floor a little faster this time around, and when he’s naked and flat on his back Connor wastes no time straddling across his hips and sinking down onto his cock. It takes a fleeting moment to adjust, and then with a little shudder and a gasp Connor sits flush in his lap, the bottom of his stomach just barely grazing Hank’s own.

“I feel huge,” Connor groans, even as he swivels his hips in a slow grind so good it makes his mouth drop open.

“You look beautiful, baby,” Hank tells him, sliding his hands up Connor’s thighs to hold on. “Gorgeous like this,” he adds, voice gone gravelly, and then cups one big hand under Connor’s belly when Connor leans forward and rocks them both into a gentle stupor.

He never took his glasses off. Carefully, Hank reaches up with gentle fingers to pull them from his face, folding the arms down with his teeth before setting them off to the side. A few stray curls fall over Connor’s forehead and he bites his mouth while he moves, thighs trembling some while he lifts up and sinks back down, straining with the extra weight at his front. When Hank sits up and presses his hands into the small of Connor’s back it’s a silent bid for him to shift, relax, and lay down, and once he does Hank settles back between his legs and pushes them up so he can slide in to the hilt.

Connor swears and sighs and presses his hand down between his thighs, working his nub between two fingers until he whimpers Hank’s name and shakes apart. It’s a beautiful sight, and Hank watches him through the whole thing until he sinks into Connor’s body one last time and lets go, shoulders snapping taut before they sag with the ease of release.

And Connor’s belly is too big now for Hank to lower himself down into his arms and ease through the last few waves, but he lets his husband’s legs drop back into the bedding and bows over for a kiss. It’s messy and hot, but Connor grasps at him anyway like he hasn’t already had enough, maybe never will get enough, even with Hank’s cock going soft inside him and his belly full of the child they made together.

“Love you,” Connor says, pressing the words into the corner of Hank’s mouth. He draws in a pinched breath that doesn’t quite hitch into the beginning of a sob, but Hank hears it rattling there anyway. “So much.”

There are a million different things Hank could tell him, but in the end he only brushes some of the damp hair off Connor’s forehead and says, “I’m glad we’re home.”

Later, when they’re tucked under the blankets and it’s gone dark in the bedroom, Connor lays turned toward Hank so his belly is nestled between them. They haven’t decided on a name for the baby yet but Hank holds his hand there and feels her move beneath his palm every so often. Sometimes it’s surreal, in a way—like if he closes his eyes and wakes up in the morning he’ll be alone again, back in the old house full of ghosts, coming up out of some hazy fever dream. But the tiny kicks beneath his hand are proof of everything otherwise.

“I can hear you thinking,” Connor says, reaching out blindly to slide a finger down the bridge of Hank’s nose. “Don’t wander off on me.”

“I’m not,” Hank tells him, voice a low rumble in the dark. He slides a hand up to curve around Connor’s hip, wanting to pull him ever closer. “I’m right here.”  
  



	5. tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I return at last! Thank you to everybody who subscribed and didn't throw in the towel on me, lol. I had some issues staying focused on multiple things during the summer months and had to direct my energy into some other projects for a spell. It's good to pay this little family a visit again ❤ Willow will be making her long-awaited debut in the next chapter and I am SO ready to cry. 
> 
> Major s/o to Theo for beta reading his own commission for this update, lol. U da 1

  
The baby shower goes over easy without a hitch. Fun and full of laughter, strung with multicolored pom-pom garlands in lieu of pink or blue, and pretty damn perfect as far as baby showers go save for one small thing that keeps hiccupping at the forefront of Hank’s brain: their kid still doesn’t have a name.

They’d all spent the afternoon calling her _baby this_ and _baby that_ , and it had been good in a…mildly strange kind of way. He and Connor are a bit far from conventional when you get down to the nitty gritty, and that’s perfectly fine with Hank—having beer and burgers and some of their friends and family come over to pull plastic naked babies out of cakes and bring them a shitload of diapers wasn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday. But that still couldn’t quite scrub out the fact that it felt like they were celebrating somebody who wasn’t… _there._

Well, not that the baby had been there tearing it up as the life of the party or anything. But still.

“I feel like our kid is Lord Voldemort or something,” Hank snorts, stuffing soda and beer cans in a bag to take out to the garbage bins. “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

“Have you decided anything yet, Henry?” Connor asks from the kitchen table where he’s sorting uneaten snack foods back into plastic containers, tone neutral but ever so slightly barbed at the end with Hank’s given name. “Give me your shortlist and we’ll go from there.”

Hank grumbles something that sounds vaguely noncommittal and rolls his shoulder. “It’s not like you’ve come up with anything that’s stuck, either. After today we’re gonna have to name her _Baby_.”

Connor sighs but pops a cheese puff into his mouth, looking surly. “Over my dead body,” he says, and then seems to regret it when something distant flashes across his husband’s face. “It’ll come to us, Hank. Some people don’t even name their children until the first couple weeks after they’re born. She’s still here. She’s not going anywhere.”

“I know, babe,” Hank says, rattling his cans but bending over to drop a kiss on top of Connor’s head that lingers, words muffled in the softness of dark curls. It’s suddenly hard to remind Connor how he knows from personal experience that some children don’t stick around for the long haul, so he doesn’t. “M’too excited,” he says instead, swallowing against that old familiar ache trying to rise up from his chest. “Wanna meet her already.”

Connor smiles gently, reaching up to touch Hank’s jaw with one hand and his belly with the other, almost like he’s trying to bridge a direct current between them. “She’ll be here sooner than you know it,” he says. “You can’t rush perfection.”

Hank laughs at that on his way outside, relieved by the sound of it in his own ears. “Our kid’s gonna come out with a built-in complex.”

“She’ll fit right in,” Connor’s voice trails after him, and Hank snorts but shakes his head while he walks around to the side of the garage.

It’s early in the evening and not yet verging on dusk, another cool but bright afternoon in the middling part of March. The baby’s due in a little over a month and Hank tries to think about how his life’s going to change, again. How _all_ their lives are going to change.

He’s already done this before, but this time he gets to do it with Connor. Bright, handsome, passionate, neurotic, brave, devoted, hard-headed, wonderful Connor.

Hank knows he’s ready. As much as he can be.

But then again it’s odd, he silently muses a half-second later as he stands beside the garbage can, that the recycling bin would be faintly mewing. Hank opens the lid and tentatively pokes his head down in, only to find a pair of wide green eyes staring back at him.

When he goes back inside five minutes later, cradling something against his belly that he’s got gathered up in the hem of his shirt, Connor stands from the kitchen table with some effort and eyes his husband warily from behind his glasses. “What’s that?”

Before Hank can answer, the tiny bundle mews again and Connor gasps. “A baby?”

“She was in the recycling bin with all the cans,” Hank mutters, pulling his shirt back to let a tiny calico head poke out. “Little trash cat.”

“Oh my goodness,” Connor says in a rush, immediately reaching out to touch the kitten, and then looks down at his pregnant belly. “Er—hold on.”

A minute later he’s wearing a kitchen apron and rubber dish washing gloves, cradling the kitten against his chest. “What should we name this one?”

Hank stares, mouth agape, while Sumo stands between them and huffs happily. “What? Con, I didn’t—’

“We can’t just put her back out there on the streets,” Connor tuts, scratching around the tiny calico’s ears while she purrs, oblivious to the bright yellow rubber gloves. “She wound up in _our_ recycling bin, Hank. That counts for something.”

“And she’s not our cat!” Hank says around a laugh, but Connor doesn’t budge, staring him down with that dangerously neutral look. “Babe…you’re eight months pregnant. She’s probably infested with Christ knows what—”

Connor narrows his eyes. “Don’t ‘babe’ me, Hank Anderson. If you were really all that worried you wouldn’t have brought her into the house.” 

Hank looks down at Sumo, hips wiggling as his tail wags in excitement, and then back up at Connor and the kitten, the latter of which is already starting to doze off as Connor strokes a gentle thumb down her back.

“I wonder how long she’s been in there,” he says, lamely, knowing he’s already been defeated—not that he ever had a chance from the start. “The trash doesn’t get picked up until Tuesday.”

“Tuesday has a ring to it,” Connor says sagely, passing the kitten back over into Hank’s cupped palms. “I’ll call the vet in the morning so we can get her checked out.”

While Connor removes his makeshift hazmat suit and washes his hands at the sink, Hank kneels down in front of Sumo and holds the kitten up for him to sniff.

“Easy, old boy,” he says, watching as the big dog snuffles around the cat’s ears. The kitten mews again and his ears perk forward but he doesn’t do much else but look back up at Hank with vague disinterest. _That’s all?_ he seems to say.

Later that night, after a rushed trip to the store before everything closes, they wash the kitten in the laundry room sink and wrap her up in a towel. She poofs up like a little fuzz ball but seems otherwise unfazed, content to sit in Connor’s lap while he waves the hair dryer over her fur, set low so it isn’t too hot.

“Should we call your brother to see if he wants to take her?” Hank asks from where he’s leaning in the doorway, one part wistful and two parts hopeful. “He’s always been good with animals.”

“Let’s give it a few days to see how she fits in,” Connor says, suddenly none too concerned with kitten cooties after a flea bath and thorough inspection. “The baby won’t be here for another month.”

As it turns out, that’s Tuesday Anderson’s first night in her new home.  
  
  
  


* * *  
  
  
  


The nursery gets finished in good timing, soft shades of muted lilac and grey that feel soothing to the touch and senses. Hank says they make him sleepy—“Which, by all fuckin’ means, bodes well for the baby”—but Connor doesn’t mind the gentle drowsiness of the room as sunlight filters in through sheer curtains. Sometimes he goes to read in the rocking chair there in the afternoons once his leave from work has started, looking up at the dogwood tree from time to time. Many of the blooms have already fallen, scattered across the lawn below like soft pink snow.

When it’s just him and Sumo and Tuesday in the house, Connor will rock in the glider and read aloud from time to time while the big dog snores at his feet and the kitten squeezes herself against his side to purr and nap. He smooths one hand over the rounded swell of his stomach while he narrates, going through poetry and classics and his old dog-eared forensic pathology books.

His back hurts more often than not and he gets winded far too easily in this long final stretch, and it’s not _easy_ —none of this has been anything resembling easy from start to finish—, but the love part already comes so naturally. It eclipses a lot of the discomfort, even in the more difficult moments, and makes Connor’s chest ache for a baby he carries with him every moment of every day but can’t hold just yet.

To think so many years of his life had been leading up to these last few precious moments before she arrives. So many things had to happen or not happen, precisely timed and carried out, so that he could sit in this nursery with his and Hank’s child only weeks away from arriving. Some of them bad—a lot of them good. Connor only knows that he can’t wait to step into this new era of his life as a father.

He imagines what she may look like, if she’ll have Hank’s honey waves or his own darker curls, if she’ll inherit his big smile or a familiar little gap between her two front teeth when she’s older. He talks to her every now and then when he’s not reading, sometimes about his day, sometimes about all the adventures he’s already excited to take her on. To the botanical gardens, to the aquarium, and then maybe all the way up to the moon hanging in the sky.

Other times he talks about Hank, smiling as he twists the gold band around his finger and tells the infamous story behind their first date or the moment Connor realized he was in love. Small secrets held between the two of them, protected by these four walls and a shared heartbeat.

And then sometimes Hank comes home in the afternoons and finds Connor asleep in the nursery, a children’s book lying open on his belly. He shelves it every time and then kisses his husband’s hair until he snuffles awake, glasses slightly askew on his face.

“What’ve you two been up to?” Hank asks, helping Connor out of the glider and holding him close, or at least as close as he can with nearly nine months of baby poking out between them.

“Just talking about the weather,” Connor murmurs, sleepy but happy to be in Hank’s arms. He smells like a spring afternoon and everything Hank all tied up into one, and if Connor could have that bottled and made into cologne he’d wear it every day for the rest of his life. For now, pressing his face against Hank’s neck and breathing in will have to be enough.

They go downstairs, followed by paws both big and small, and futz around the kitchen until dinner finally pulls itself together. These last few weeks before the baby comes are strange, sometimes, like they’re seated at the table together but waiting on a third person to sit down before they start eating. The house feels too quiet despite the usual sounds, and Connor knows other people would say he needs to relish in this before it goes away forever, but he only wishes for the laughter and commotion a child would bring into their home—like if he concentrates hard enough, he can already hear tiny feet running on the hardwood.

After his shower in the evenings, Hank will have him lie down across the bed and lather some cocoa butter between his big hands, starting with Connor’s feet and slowly roam his way upwards—massaging his husband’s calves, thighs, hips, tenderly working the sinewy muscles in each arm. Doting as ever despite how tired he is, leaning over to drop a whiskery kiss above Connor’s navel before he rubs lotion into the taut skin. The baby moves and shifts sometimes, seemingly tickled by her father’s touch, and Hank watches in silent awe as they see tiny elbows and feet press from the inside.

“She already knows you,” Connor says, lulled and sleepy, voice full of smoky liquid honey now that his muscles all feel like pleasantly pulled taffy. The baby’s movements are jarring sometimes, but she settles some as he starts to nod off. “I talk about you all the time.”

“You do, huh?” Hank asks, helping tuck Connor up under the sheets and setting his glasses down on the bedside table. He’ll go and take his own turn in the shower and then let Sumo out one more time before climbing back into bed. He works so hard and does so much—brings an immeasurable amount of goodness and warmth and stability into Connor’s life, even now, even when his years of feeling like a flickering candle flame are mostly long behind him.

Hank would say the same thing about Connor, and he often has. It’s a funny thing, how two matched souls can do that for one another.  
  
  
  


* * *  
  
  
  


It’s not often that Connor remembers his dreams.

They’re usually abstract watercolor smears of light and sound, color and texture. Nothing tangible, nothing concrete that he can tease out of his memory upon waking. Years ago, his therapist once recommended keeping a small notepad by his bedside to write down anything he thought his subconscious was trying to divulge, but it never amounted to much. There was one time, the week before he married Hank, where Connor remembers dreaming of trying to suck a bowling ball through a twisty straw.

“You think that means anything… _bad?_ ” Hank had asked at the time, like he was honestly concerned. Sitting on their couch in the old house by the canal with Connor slumped across his lap, still fragile enough in those small ways that meant his thoughts had probably strayed to Connor having cold feet. The bowling ball was obviously some insurmountable problem between them—Hank being the deadweight ball on Connor’s chain and all manner of terrible things.

Connor had only laughed, bright and loud, before kissing the man he’d agreed to marry. “It means your dick is big,” he told Hank, wiggling his ass down against Hank’s crotch for emphasis. “Somehow I already knew that.”

But tonight, when he finds himself staring into two familiar blue eyes he’s never quite met, he knows he won’t forget this dream.

“Hank?” he asks, standing there at the edge of some river that moves like blue muslin instead of water. The trickling sound is distinct, though, reminiscent of those soothing soundtracks they play in doctor’s offices, while the mossy foliage under Connor’s feet is spongy and fragrant. Everything smells like ozone.

“Nah,” the young man says. He’s honey blond, all shaggy curls and a gap-toothed smile, but still something isn’t quite right. He matches the pictures taken in Hank’s youth in nearly every way except the slightly plumper shape of his bottom lip and tiny scar like a crescent at his temple, and the moment he opens his mouth again Connor’s gut clenches in disbelief. “It’s Cole.”

Connor knows this isn’t right. Cole would’ve only been about thirteen by now, if he were still alive. Not this strapping young man, as handsome and broad as his father.

He stands there anyway, hand gone to rest over his belly in a protective afterthought. “I don’t think we’ve ever met before,” he says carefully.

“Not really,” Cole says with a little shrug of his shoulders. “Maybe one day.”

Behind him, fathomlessly huge and swaying in an invisible breeze Connor doesn’t quite feel, is a great tree. Its tendril branches dip into the river current like long fingers, verdant and green but full of some vague melancholy like if the tree were truly alive, it would lay across the earth and weep.

Cole tips his head to one side so a few curls fall over his forehead, blue eyes bright. “You been taking care of my dad?”

“Always,” Connor says without hesitation. “Why do you ask?”

“I still worry about him sometimes,” Cole says, reaching up to scratch along his jaw in the same way Hank does. It’s both maddening and endearing, like Connor’s looking at a younger shade of his husband—and yet not.

“Think he’s doing better now, though,” Cole adds, glancing down at Connor’s belly with a smile that makes a dimple deepen in one cheek. “You haven’t picked out a name for her yet?”

A line draws between Connor’s eyes as he frowns a bit, sighing. “Not yet,” he says. “Don’t tell me you’ve got any suggestions.”

Cole laughs a little under his breath and shakes his head, stooping to pick up a few smooth stones scattered around their feet. Some of the willow tree’s branches embrace him like the arms are trying to draw him inward against the trunk like a lost love, but Cole doesn’t seem to notice as he plonks a white pebble in the river. Instead of a splash it makes a sound like a plucked harp string.

“Nah, nothing good,” Cole says. “My old stuffed dog used to be named Puppy. Not the most creative kid there ever was, even if dad loved all my little stories.”

Connor feels his throat tighten. He knows a stuffed dog was buried with Cole years and years ago, six feet underground somewhere in one of outer Detroit’s cemeteries. Hank never told him the dog’s name was Puppy.

“Is this who you would’ve been?” he asks abruptly, unable to stop himself. “If you—if you’d lived.”

Cole tosses another stone into the river, smiling just wide enough that Connor can see that glimpse of the gap between his teeth again. “Maybe,” he says, shrugging. “Don’t guess we’ll ever really know.”

He turns and parts through the willow branches like they’re beaded curtains, shimmering there in a waterfall of green, and disappears. “Tell little sis I love her,” Cole’s voice says, echoing back through the tree’s shade like they’re in a rocky cavern.

“Cole?” Connor calls after him. “Cole!”

When Connor goes to follow he pulls back the drape of leaves and feels them touch his face in a gentle caress, tender and sweet as a child’s hands. But when he takes a single step forward beneath the tree he blinks awake, ripped away from the riverbank, and senses nothing but the darkness of their bedroom and the familiar, comforting cadence of Hank’s soft snores.

Hank’s breath catches and shifts, hand automatically reaching out to find Connor under the blankets before he’s even fully awake.

“Con,” he mumbles, touching his forearm, skin warm with sleep. “You okay? Heard you say somethin’.”

The reverberation of Cole’s name is still ringing in his head but Connor doesn’t dare say it. He stares hard at the dark, a calm hand resting on his belly through the threadbare fabric of one of Hank’s old t-shirts. Thinks of the pebble Cole dropped into the water beneath the branches of that big tree, a tiny pinch of sudden clarity.

“Willow,” he says.

Hank is awake now, propped there on one elbow. He sighs, deflating, and Connor realizes with a pang of guilt that Hank probably thought there was something wrong with him or the baby.

“What?” he asks, hand sliding down to Connor’s wrist, gently thumbing at the inner pulse point there.

Connor takes Hank’s hand and brings it up to his mouth, just so the pads of his fingers can feel the word again when his lips move. “What do you think of Willow?” he asks, and then kisses Hank’s palm. “For the baby.”

Hank is quiet for a moment, though he gently turns his wrist and swipes a thumb across his husband’s bottom lip while he thinks. “Like the tree?” he asks, and then chuckles in the dark when Connor swears and huffs against his hand.

“ _Yes_ , like the tree,” Connor says, taking Hank’s hand in his own and resting them both there on his stomach. “Something about it feels—poetic. I don’t know.” Doubt slowly creeps into his mind, making him feel a little foolish for even suggesting it without further explanation. “Maybe we should look it up.”

“Willow,” Hank says, trying out the name for himself. It makes the hair on Connor’s arms prickle and stand up when he says it. “Willow Anderson.”

They both startle and laugh when the baby kicks under his hand, apparently awake as well at the early morning hour. Connor’s breathless from the jab under his ribs but still smiles hard enough that it hurts. He’s so happy, in this moment, and thankful. It’s 2:30 in the morning and he can hardly sleep as it is with a belly this big, but there’s not anywhere else on earth he’d rather be.

For now, they don’t talk about the name anymore, but something about it feels final. A gentle word held between the warmth of two cupped palms, like a seedling being planted in the earth.  

As he drifts back off to sleep with Hank’s arm wrapped around him, Connor makes a mental note to tell Cole thank you, if their paths ever do happen to cross again.  
  
  



	6. april 12th

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's baby time!!! 
> 
> This chapter is the weirdest mixture of hospital jargon/procedure and cavity-causing softness. Also it’s 4K that goes by within the blink of an eye, but I’m already working on the next update where Grammy Amanda and Uncle Niles stop in and Hank and Connor take the baby home, so we’ll get back on the domestic track soon enough. I’m sorry if some of my medical knowledge specifics drop the ball on realism—my mom is a labor & delivery nurse, funnily enough, but I didn’t sit down and consult with her on this particular work lol. 
> 
> CW: Connor gets an epidural and Hank very, very briefly looks over the surgery drape when the baby is being delivered via caesarean, but it's really nothing graphic or bloody. Also, Dr. Simmons is our good man Josh :)

  
  
On the spring morning they’re scheduled to check in at the hospital, Connor wakes first and—for the first time in a few months—doesn’t get up to shuffle to the bathroom right away. He rolls over with a grunt, belly full of as many phantom butterflies as it is baby, and kisses Hank’s chest and shoulder until he slowly snuffles awake.

Hank doesn’t speak at first, only wraps his arm around Connor and buries his face against his husband’s neck while he rouses, whiskers tickling as he sleepily kisses the pale skin there.

“Today’s the day,” Connor whispers, threading his fingers through Hank’s hair. “The first day of the rest of our lives, take two. Or three. Maybe we can squeeze in a fourth, if we get frisky about it.”

He laughs, such a beautiful sound, and Hank feels—well. He feels good. At ease, and so goddamn thankful that this is what they’d decided together.

When Cole was born, things had been hectic and fast, and it’d been hard watching Jennifer be in so much pain. He’d been so fucking scared on his way to the hospital, driving ninety to nothing through downtown Detroit because he’d been nine hours into a twelve on graveyard when he got the call that the baby was coming. There’d been blood and sweat and tears and finally a squalling infant they hadn’t even let him or Jen hold, at first, because there’d been some suspected complication with his heart that needed a scan and a monitor.

This time around, Hank gets to take Connor to the hospital on their own terms. The overnight bag’s already packed, there’s a pre-op room waiting for them in the labor and delivery unit, and Niles has long since offered to check in on Tuesday and Sumo. Connor won’t have to hurt and they won’t have to wait for the inevitable to find them because they’re beating it to the punch.

When they’d first discussed picking the day for the baby to be born, it’d felt odd and a little like playing too much with fate, scheduling a child’s arrival. Shouldn’t she have been able to pick her own birthday as her first act of free will? Hank balked some in the beginning, weirdly unsure about the whole thing, but then Connor had laid a hand across his forearm in the doctor’s office parking lot and squeezed, firmly but reassuringly, like Hank was the one tasked with carrying the tiny human they’d be welcoming into the world.

“I want us to be ready and I want us to know,” Connor said, and that much had felt like a blessing when Hank sat and really thought about it. “Now, do we want an Aries or a Taurus?” had been the next thing out of Connor’s mouth, accompanied with a sly smile, and in the end they’d looked at the calendar together and touched fingers on the 12th day of April.

She’d be two weeks and some change early in the grand scheme of things, but that was alright. Every scan so far had been healthy and right on track for natal growth, even if the baby was a little on the smaller side. But now they had a day to look forward to, crystal clear and decided. They were ready.

Here and now, still lying in bed with his husband on the morning of April the twelfth, Hank leans over and kisses the curve of Connor’s belly, right there next to a mole by his navel. It’s strange to think that by sometime this afternoon the baby inside will be a brand new person he can hold in his hands. They’ll be able to see her face, her little fingers, the color of her hair, the murky newborn blue of her eyes.

Some part of Hank wants to panic at the thought, but the idea of terror moves through him like a passing wave come and gone. There will be time to worry and be afraid later, but for now he only wants to hold his daughter and see that she’s strong and healthy. He wants Connor to be safe and comfortable. The rest doesn’t matter.

They rise together and eat a light breakfast, shower, and get dressed without any rush. It’s still cool outside and Connor shrugs into one of Hank’s old jackets, belly poking out like he’s smuggling a globe of the world under his shirt. Watching him tell Sumo and Tuesday goodbye, Hank knows that it’s his whole world, at least, standing there in the foyer.

“You ready, daddy?” Hank asks at the front door, watching as Connor’s eyes crinkle up in mirth as he smiles, shy and excited all at once.

“I’m gonna have to get used to that,” Connor mumbles, grinning fit to burst, but tips his face up for a kiss before they walk out the door one last time as Hank and Connor Anderson, family of two.  
  
  


* * *  
  
  


Getting checked in at the hospital goes a lot more smoothly than expected. Connor walks into the labor and delivery ward, smiles at the receptionist behind the desk, signs himself in, and takes a seat in the waiting area while they wait to be called back. If a few people stare in their direction, he pays them no mind. He only leans closer to Hank with his phone balanced on his belly and shares something from an article he’d been reading about the discovery of a new DNA structure.

“It intertwines and connects beyond the parameters of a simple helix structure,” Connor says, reading a few more lines aloud, and when he peers up at Hank he finds two blue eyes gazing back at him, but it’s clear Hank wasn’t doing much listening.

“I hope this kid is as smart as you,” Hank huffs, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I don’t even know how you can focus on that right now, Con. I can’t think of anything but babies.”

“I’ve already been out of work for two weeks,” Connor groans, letting his phone fall face-down against his belly. “I’ve been trying to focus on anything _but_ babies. My lab is probably in shambles. I’m having wet dreams about microscope slides and the evidence drying cabinet.”

Hank snorts out another laugh and wraps an arm around Connor’s shoulders to pull him closer. “You know the lab’s in good hands with Chloe,” he says, and then looks up as the sliding doors whir open and a nurse in periwinkle scrubs comes out to greet them.

“Mr. Anderson,” she says, extending a hand to Connor first and foremost. She reads out the information printed on a plastic hospital band and snaps it around his wrist before doing the same for Hank. “We’ve got the room all set up for you, if you’d like to follow me this way.”

Connor undresses and shrugs into a hospital gown and a fresh pair of socks. Hank folds his clothes up and tucks them away in their bag while the nurse checks his vitals and starts an IV, and then sits nearby while she chats and has Connor lie back on the bed and pull up the sheet so she can wash and run a pair of clippers over his lower belly.

“I know I wasn’t supposed to wet shave, but we could’ve done this at home,” Connor murmurs, clearly a little embarrassed, but the nurse waves him off and focuses on the task at hand.

“No worries, dear, we do this for everybody getting a C-section,” she says, finishing up a moment later. “The anesthesiologist should be around within the hour so we can get your epidural started—but you hit your call button if you need anything before then, alright? I’ll be back in to check on you in a bit.”

Hank feels a bead of sweat prickle between his shoulders at the word _epidural_. Christ, it’s not even his body and he’s queasy at the thought. Blood and carnage and gunfire don’t faze him anymore, but the idea of that long needle going into Connor’s back has him swaying slightly where he sits.

The anesthesiologist comes in within an hour, sitting Connor up and counting notches on his spine before explaining how the procedure works. Hank sits between Connor’s knees at the side of the bed and holds him steady while the doctor numbs his back, speaking in a low, gentle voice only Connor can hear.

When the epidural catheter is inserted and taped in place, the anesthesiologist bids them farewell with a promise to see Connor again the OR. The nurse pulls the privacy curtain and gets Connor set up with everything else he needs prior to surgery, and within twenty minutes he can’t feel a thing from the waist down.

“I could’ve used one of those after that time you blew out my fuckin’ back,” Hank grunts appreciatively, and then looks up real fast when there’s a knock on the door and Dr. Joshua Simmons peeks in.

“Hello Anderson family,” he says, smiling earnestly so that it reaches his kind, dark eyes. He’s already in operating room scrubs and a surgical cap, somehow handsome enough to be on the cover of a magazine just like that. “Today’s the big day. I trust you’re ready to meet your newest addition?”

Connor smiles and smooths his hands over the sheet draped on his belly. “More than,” he says. “I think we wish the baby was already here.”

Dr. Simmons laughs and briefly drops down onto a rolling stool by the charting terminal to scoot closer to the bed. Hank’s always liked him—intelligent but personable, without any of the airs or coldness he’s caught from other doctors in the past.

“It’d sure be nice if I could magic them out,” Dr. Simmons says, gently prodding around Connor’s legs and lower belly to check the progression of the epidural. “Can’t feel any of this, right? Just a little pressure.”

“Just pressure,” Connor confirms, and then pays close attention while the doctor explains how a caesarian works and their plan once they get Connor on the table in the operating room. Hank watches his husband more than the doctor, wondering where Connor draws from the well of strength and courage that never seems to run dry.

“We’ll get you set up with some scrubs too, Hank,” Dr. Simmons says, breaking into his thoughts as the stool wheels back to the terminal and the doctor stands. He shakes both their hands and heads for the door. “I’ll see you both in about an hour down in the OR, alright? Take it easy until then.”

When they’re alone again, easygoing silence fills the room around the steady beep of monitors. Hank shakes his head, trying not to slip into that surreal immersion again. He turns back to Connor, whose brown eyes were already lingering on his face, soft and warm.

“Are you scared?” Connor asks as Hank reaches up and wraps his big hand around his husband’s palm. A stranger laughs as they pass in the hallway outside. Neither one of them mention the fact that Hank’s fingers are trembling.

“No,” he lies, and then lets out a shaky laugh. “Well—fuck, maybe a little.”

“Don’t be,” Connor says, squeezing. “I’m not.”

“You’re not?” Hank asks, searching his face for any flicker of doubt, but Connor only shakes his head.

“You’ll be there,” he says. “That’s all I need right now.”

Hank wants to be strong so badly, for Connor and their daughter both, but it’s never been so fucking hard. He drops his forehead against Connor’s shoulder and draws in a deep, steadying breath that hitches a little when he feels a gentle kiss press somewhere behind his ear.  

“I’ve done this before,” Hank rasps against the soft material of Connor’s surgery gown. “I shouldn’t be so shaken up about it.”

“You’re doing amazing,” Connor says, pushing his fingers through Hank’s hair even though the IV in the back of his hand makes it hard. “This could probably go without saying, but I wouldn’t have let just anybody knock me up, Hank Anderson.”

Hank laughs and slowly raises his head to level Connor with a narrow look. “Is that supposed to help take the edge off?”

Connor snorts. “It’s _supposed_ to remind you that I know you’re going to be a wonderful Papa,” he says, and then his voice softens, lashes dipping low behind his glasses. “I—I think I’ve always known that, Hank. Even when I hadn’t fully realized it yet.”

In his mind’s inner eye, Hank tries to think back to the first moment he saw Connor Stern standing in front of him all those years ago, pristine and stuffy in his button-down and the white coat he wore in the lab when it got too cold. Could either of them have known what was coming, then? When Hank was still wrapped so tightly in grief that it nearly suffocated him in the end, and all Connor wanted out of life was a career ladder to ruthlessly climb and something to prove.

No, Hank decides. He wouldn’t have known it then. Connor couldn’t have known it in that first moment, either. But Hank’s perfectly aware of what he knows now.

“I love you,” he says, kissing Connor’s hand and then the corner of his mouth. Hank smiles even if it wobbles on one side, and quietly decides now’s not the time to remind Connor that he’s both saved Hank’s life and helped them create another. His voice sounds humbled to his own ears, quietly awestruck even if he’s stating the obvious. “We’re having a baby soon.”  

“We are,” Connor answers, eyes bright behind his glasses. He laughs softly to himself, flustered between trying to balance emotion with humor, and lets his fingers stray to the back of Hank’s hands where his fine fingers trace a branch of veins raised through the skin. “Do—do you think she feels how much we love her already?”

Hank’s not much of a spiritual man; never was, probably never will be. In another life, maybe he’d have even laughed at that question, simple as it was. But he has faith in Connor and the love they fell into together, and that is more than enough to make him believe in…something.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding because it must be true. He slips his other hand up to splay over Connor’s stomach, wide enough to nearly branch around one whole side, and smiles when he feels something shift beneath his palm. “I think she does.”  
  
  


* * *  
  
  


When the nurse comes to collect Connor and pulls up the break on his hospital bed, he draws in a deep breath and takes every movement and moment in stride. Another nurse takes their overnight bag to a different room upstairs on the recovery ward, and Hank walks halfway down the hall alongside the bed before Connor sighs and says, with just the slightest twinge of trembling in his voice, “Next time I think I want to be able to walk when I do this.”

“ _Next time?_ ” Hank rasps, looking down at the cheeky smile blooming on Connor’s face.

The nurse giggles and Connor sniffs, tipping up his chin a fraction of an inch. “I haven’t written it off completely,” he says conspiringly. “What if we wanted 2.5 kids to go with our picket fence?”

“Jesus Christ,” Hank mutters as he drags a hand over one side of his face, but it must have the intended effect, because some of the tension bleeds from the tight knot between his shoulders.

When they wheel into the operating room, the nurse steers Connor’s bed over to the table and another nurse motions for Hank to come wash up and step into a gown in the auxiliary area. The OR smells faintly of disinfectant but it’s not quite as cold or miserable as he’d feared—monitors are already turned on and Hank notes the empty baby warmer against the wall, freshly set up and waiting for a new little person. His hands shake while he tucks his hair back under a cap and lets a male nurse tie up the back of his gown, breath feeling hot under the disposable mask they gave him for his nose and mouth.

Connor’s set up on the operating table and hooked to all the monitors when Hank returns to his side. There’s an oxygen cannula in his nose and the nurses are busy setting up a blue surgery drape across his chest when the anesthesiologist and Dr. Simmons walk back into the room, scrubbed up and ready.  

Hank takes a seat and ducks down close so his voice is at Connor’s temple, and he’s thankful for the blue surgical drape and its small gift of strange privacy. “You okay, babe?” he asks, pressing his thumb into the heart of Connor’s palm when his husband reaches for it.

“Never better,” Connor tells him, grip strong. The doctors and nurses talk among themselves as they continue prepping, and Hank sees an iodine cup and swab appear and disappear behind the drape. He tells himself he won’t look at what’s happening beneath the overhead light; he’ll stay here with Connor and they’ll get through this together.

Dr. Simmons seems satisfied with the prep and picks up his scalpel before glancing at the clock. “Here we go,” he says, and then throws his voice in Hank and Connor’s direction. "Remember to keep breathing for me, you’re doing great. That includes you too, Hank.”

“Got it, doc,” Hank says, verging on lightheaded when he says it. Connor just smiles up at him, brown eyes warm and painfully sincere. He doesn’t seem phased that he’s being opened up just on the other side of the drape. If he’s scared, it doesn’t show.

“Does it feel like our lives are about to change?” Connor asks.

Hank shakes his head. “No,” he says, drawing in a shallow breath. It hadn’t felt like it the first time, either. But the beauty of doing it all over again is that he knows how to step back into that old pair of boots and start walking.

The clock ticks and the monitors beep steadily as a metronome. It feels like a year has passed in this sterile room with pale blue walls the color of a faded robin’s egg, and then something in the air shifts.

“Here she comes,” Dr. Simmons says, and Connor makes a soft sound as the odd pressure shifts in his body, squeezing Hank’s hands like a lifeline. “Almost there.”

Hank told himself he wouldn’t look, couldn’t see Connor opened up like this, but here in the moment itself curiosity digs a finger into his impulsive side and won’t leave him alone until he sits up enough to peer over the drape. He grips Connor’s hands so tightly, refusing to let go, and watches as the doctor pulls a tiny baby out and brings her into the light.

“Congratulations,” Dr. Simmons says, the smile behind his surgical mask bleeding through into his voice. He holds her up over the drape for just a moment, still wrinkled and slick, so Connor can see for himself. “Looks like you have a healthy baby girl.”

Hank looks at her, still attached to the umbilical cord and not yet aware she’s been pulled from the warmth and safety of her daddy’s belly, and feels his knees lock to keep from buckling. The nurse with the receiving blanket takes the baby once the cord has been clamped off and suctions out her nose and mouth, and then a small cry rings out in the operating room.

“Hank,” Connor chokes out, eyes shining as he draws in a shaky breath. Hank sinks back down to leave a lingering kiss on Connor’s forehead as they listen to their daughter feebly wail while she gets weighed and measured on the other side of the room.

“Go see her,” Connor croaks, wetly sniffling. “Go. I’m right here.”

Hank stands on jelly legs and slowly walks over to the baby warmer, feeling too-big and cumbersome in his scrub gown and cap. He towers over the petite nurse, and when she carefully places a swaddled bundle in his hands, he feels enormous. Their daughter is small enough to hold just like that, cupped between his two palms like something impossibly precious.

And she is, Hank knows. He looks down into her tiny face and feels his life shift back into place, perfectly aligned despite the old scarring still there. To think he’s holding the living, breathing proof of his second shot in the big game called life.

Connor’s still laying there while the Dr. Simmons sutures him up, blissfully oblivious to everything happening behind the surgery drape. He can’t quite turn around to look, and Hank immediately returns to his side with the tiny bundle safe in his hands, bending low so Connor can see her.

One of the nurses pushes a chair back over like she somehow knew Hank’s knees were shaking under his scrubs. He sinks down into it with every ounce of care in his body, all six foot four of a man bent there beside his whole world, wrought speechless and wordlessly grateful.

Tears are streaking behind Connor’s glasses, running from the corners of his eyes into his temples. He laughs, or tries to, but it crumples in half and he lets out a quiet sob as he holds up a shaking hand to touch the baby’s face for the first time.

Hank can’t speak. Only watches on, tearful himself, as he gently lowers their quieted daughter into the crook of Connor’s arm where he rests on the operating table. Connor tries to wipe at his eyes with his free hand but the IV gets in the way, and Hank thumbs some of the wetness away before leaning over to kiss his husband again.

He hopes he remembers this moment forever. He knows he will.

“Hi little Willow,” Connor rasps out in a gentle whisper, kissing the soft newborn hat on their daughter’s head. “We’re your daddies.”

Willow’s eyes are open, unfocused but still greyish blue under the fluorescent light. She looks quizzical about things, just a tad bit pinched in the face, but stays quiet while Connor lifts up the edge of her knit hat to peek at her drying hair. Dark, like his, though it’s still too baby-fine to know if she’ll have any curls just yet.

Hank touches the tip of his little finger to his daughter’s hand and she wraps her tiny fingers around it, holding on tight. A palm so small it doesn’t quite manage to grip all the way around his pinky. Cole used to be that small, once.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Hank says. Something aching rises up in the back of his throat but he keeps it lodged there for now and swallows the pain back down, letting gratefulness surge up to take its place. “Hi baby. I’m your Papa.”

Connor laughs weakly again, delighted beyond understanding, and runs his thumb over Willow’s nose, her cheeks, the tiny rosebud of her mouth. “Look at her, Hank,” he says, still crying freely. “We made this.”

Hank nods and pulls the mask away from his mouth to kiss his husband.

“Thank you,” he says, pressing the words like a prayer at the crown of Connor’s head while he cradles their baby, still just a few minutes old. “Thank you.”  
  
  



	7. going home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! I've had most of this chapter sitting around on deck for a while, but had some extra time today to sit and wrap it up. The latter half of the update is something many of you may recognize as the first installment of this 'verse I ever wrote; it was posted as a standalone ficlet almost a year ago as a prompt fill, but I figured I'd better preserve it here, too, in case tumblr ever truly shits the bed. 
> 
> I know this isn't my most popular fic by a long shot, but I genuinely appreciate everyone who sends me love and leaves sweet comments on it with each update. Even if it started as a commission for Theo, I've definitely grown attached to this little family and writing about them is incredibly soothing, lol. It just feels good to see them heal and grow and be happy. Love you guys!

  
  
Hank doesn’t sleep much, that first long night in the hospital.

Not that it’s any fault of the baby’s—Willow sleeps soundly and only wakes when she’s hungry, and the real blessing of formula feeding is that Hank can manage almost all her bottles himself while Connor rests. It makes him feel useful, he supposes. Needed in a way he hadn’t been as much in those first few weeks of Cole’s life.

Connor’s epidural had worn off eventually, and then the pain medication had kicked in to help combat the deeper sutures holding his lower belly together. He took every moment of discomfort in stride once he could walk—went to the bathroom, washed his face, combed his hair, ate an impressively sized salad and sandwich from the hospital cafeteria, and then got back in bed to hold the baby on his chest like he’d been doing it his whole life.

Hank knows Connor has always made everything look easy, but it was still hard to miss the glow of love and wonder on his husband’s face as he looked down at their daughter. Like Connor was quietly astonished, somehow, that the baby in his arms had been curled up in his belly only a few hours before.

He dozes now in the hospital bed, looking pale but handsome in the moonlight coming in through the slatted window blinds. It’s a few minutes past three in the morning and Connor and the baby have both been asleep since she last ate shortly before midnight. Willow rests in her hospital bassinet between Hank’s visitor recliner and Connor’s bed, dressed now in a little diaper and onesie they’d buttoned her into before she’d been put down for the night.

It’s quiet. Almost strangely so, considering there’s a brand new baby in the room.

In just a few hours the door will open and Amanda and Niles will come bearing flowers and a tiny stuffed dog. Hank’s thinking about how none of his own flesh-and-blood family will walk through that door when a tiny whimper starts up from the bassinet. He’s on his feet in a flash despite the pop in his left knee, watching from above as the baby squirms and starts to fuss louder than before.

Connor hasn’t stirred just yet, still pulled down under the drowsy weight of pain medication. Hank looks at him and then down at Willow, and gathers her up into the crook of his arm before slipping out into the hallway. He doesn’t intend to go far—if Connor wakes up and wonders where they’ve gone, all he’ll need to do is peek out the door and look to his right.

“What’s wrong, ladybug?” Hank murmurs, putting a little bounce in his step as he tries to soothe the baby’s cries. “You ready to eat again? We’ll go find something in just a second.”

He hums as they stroll down to the nurse’s station, fixing the hat on Willow’s head and adjusting her swaddling blanket. She probably needs to be changed but they can do that when they get back to the room. For now it feels good to stretch his legs, and oddly enough, fall back into the routine of doing these late-night walks Hank never thought he’d take again.

The handful of nurses charting and drinking coffee at the desk look surprised to see him up and about with the baby in his arms. Hank smiles a bit bashfully, doing a little two-fingered wave under the collective weight of their gaze.

“Uh, morning,” he says, clearing his throat. “I was wondering if anybody had a few of those spare formula packets laying around. The day shift nurse only brought a couple into the room earlier and the kid here’s already gone slam through them.”

“Oh—of course,” one of the nurses says, getting up fast enough that her chair spins in her wake. She disappears into a store room and then comes back out with a bottle of distilled water and some formula powder. “We didn’t hear any of the call buttons go off. Did you need us to help you with anything?”

Hank smiles as he takes the supplies and drops it all into the pocket of his flannel overshirt. “We’re good,” he says, looking down when Willow starts to whine again. “This isn’t my first big rodeo. Just wanted to let my husband sleep, is all. Thanks.”

They start off back down the long tiled hall, and as sure as anything, Hank can see a messy halo of curls peering at him from the recovery room doorway. Connor steps out of the room in his socks and sweats he must’ve pulled on underneath his hospital gown, a tired smile slowly beaming across his face.

“Where’d you two wander off to?” he asks. “I was about to come track you down myself.”

“Milk run,” Hank says, and then frowns when he sees Connor wince and distractedly press a hand to his middle. “You should be in bed.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Connor insists, reaching for the water and formula in Hank’s pocket. He wanders back into the room and starts mixing things up like he’s in the lab, reading and rereading the fine print directions to make sure his proportions are right.

The baby starts crying in earnest, then, and doesn’t stop until they’ve changed her diaper and warmed up the bottle enough for her to settle and eat. Connor looks a little frazzled in the wake of hearing Willow scream but otherwise takes it all in stride, sitting there on the arm of Hank’s recliner while he watches her drain most of the formula.

“This is crazy, isn’t it,” he says, holding a thoughtful hand against his mouth. It’s nearing four o’clock in the morning and the whole world feels like a protective eggshell around them, not yet broken from the inside. The baby hasn’t even drawn her first breath of fresh outside air.

Hank sets the empty bottle aside and situates the bib on his shoulder before turning Willow upright to start patting her back. He laughs, just a soft huff of amusement that ruffles the baby’s fine hair. “You just now figuring that out?” he asks.

“No,” Connor says, adamant, and then clears his throat. When he speaks again his voice is slanted a little strange on one side. “I just didn’t—I knew, but I didn’t _know_ , how much I’d feel. Once she actually got here.” He laughs a bit breathlessly and looks down at the baby before croaking, “It’s a lot.”

Hank wishes he could hold them both, but for now he briefly runs a palm down Connor’s back while Willow squirms around against his shoulder. “It is,” he says. “I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet.”

“But you’re used to all this,” Connor says, trying to be vaguely dismissive of the wetness gathering in his eyes—he’s obviously full to the brim with medication and baby hormones, but Hank doesn’t want him to feel self-conscious about it. Far from it.

“I’ve only ever done this once,” he says gently, trying to admit the reality as it is; they’ve only had the baby in their arms for less than twelve hours. Hank hasn’t had the _time_ to sit and let it overwhelm him just yet. “Truth be told, honey,” he adds after a moment, rubbing soothing circles on Willow’s back, “I think I’m still running on autopilot.”

Connor presses his hand to his middle and leans over, dropping a kiss to the top of Hank’s head. “You don’t give yourself enough credit for what you do,” he says, and then slowly stands.

He disappears into the bathroom for a few minutes and then returns smelling like cold water and hospital soap. Hank’s finished burping the baby, so when Connor’s settled back in bed he takes her over and passes her into her daddy’s arms.

“Do you need anything?” he asks, watching Connor bring Willow up for a kiss of her own. “I know it’s early, but y’know your mom and Niles are going to be up here like fuckin’ gangbusters the second security opens visiting hours.”

Connor laughs at that, bright and loud, before looking down at the baby with a guilty look. He shakes his head and looks away before gazing back at Hank, eyes wavering some. “Do you think there’s enough room for both of us in this bed?”

Hank surveys the width of the mattress and sucks some wind through his teeth. “If I was around half the size I am, _maybe_.”

“You’re right,” Connor says, looking a bit pink in the face, flustered for having said anything. “Guess I’m just ready to be back home.”

He sounds crestfallen, but Hank knows there’s nothing to do for it. “Soon enough, babe,” he says, and then drags his chair over to the bedside. “The more you rest and start healing up, the faster we’ll be back at the house.”

Connor sighs but tries to smile. The baby has quieted some, resting there against his chest in the crook of one arm, and he gently pulls her little hat off to smooth her dark hair flat with the pads of his fingers.

“You’ll get to meet Sumo and Tuesday,” Connor murmurs, tracing around Willow’s tiny ears. “And see your nursery we painted special, just for you.”

Hank listens to his husband’s sweet words and feels himself growing drowsy again. It’d be best to squeeze in another hour or two of shuteye while Willow’s fed and napping, but for now he leans over and pillows his head on his hands in the blankets next to Connor’s hip.

“Your Papa did most of the work,” Connor adds, and then Hank feels familiar fingers push through the hair at the crown of his head, over his scalp and down to the nape of his neck. He’s thinking about what _else_ they did that night after they painted the nursery, and Connor must be, too, because there’s a smile in his voice when he says, “I helped, of course. All good work needs a supervisor.”

Hank grunts at that but doesn’t raise his head, content to be petted on himself for just a moment. He feels heavier and heavier, listening to the far-off sound of what might be Connor humming a soft tune he knows but can’t name.  
  
  


* * *  
  
  


Their nurse comes in bright and early to check Connor’s wound dressing, having him recline back in bed before she peels the gauze away to have a look. There’s some drainage and blood spotting on the bandage and the skin around the staples is still red and tender, but otherwise it looks healthy. The incision is about as wide as Hank’s palm, and neater than he would’ve thought, given what he saw yesterday when he peeked over the surgical drape in the operating room.

“No lifting anything heavier than your baby for six weeks,” the nurse says, giving Connor a pointed look over her reading glasses while she charts something at the computer terminal and goes to check his antibiotic fluids. “I can always tell who’s going to push it and try to do too much too soon, Mr. Anderson.”

Connor pulls his gown back down over the bandage on his belly and blows a curl of hair off his forehead. “Why does everybody think I’m going to go out and run a marathon less than 24 hours after popping my kid out?” he asks, looking over at Hank with an incredulous expression.

“Because anybody who’s ever spent more than five minutes with you knows you’re a chronic workaholic, babe,” Hank says, and then looks past Connor to the door when it swings open from the hall. “Hey! Here’s the Grandma of the year.”

“Please, Hank, I’ve got too much life left in me to be _Grandma_ ,” Amanda says with a soft snort, breezing in with a massive flower arrangement held between both hands and her pocketbook hanging on the crook of one elbow. Connor’s younger—and taller—brother follows in her wake, though he stands off to the side to set the sunflowers down while Amanda goes straight to her eldest like a moth drawn to the flame.

“You could’ve knocked!” Connor protests, even if he’s grinning as he tries to straighten the hospital gown and tie up his sweatpants again. The nurse leaves and shuts the door behind her, leaving the little family some privacy. “Hey, mom.”

“Consider yourself lucky I didn’t show up last night and fight that security guard down in the lobby,” Amanda says cryptically, leaning in close to kiss Connor’s forehead and then rub at the rosy lipstick mark left there. “Now, where’s my grandbaby?”

As soon as she asks, her eyes swivel right to the bundle wrapped up in Hank’s arms. She’s spirited her purse away and all but materialized at his side in an instant, bent at the waist so she can gaze at Willow’s tiny face.

“That’s an Anderson baby if I ever did see one,” Amanda says with a laugh, even if she’s already gracefully sniffing when she does it. Hank stands and gestures for her to sit down in his place, and once Willow is blinking hazily up at her grandmother with grey-blue eyes, Amanda has already fallen in love.

“Did you know I’m your favorite Nanny?” she coos, letting the baby wrap a tiny hand around the long pendant hanging from her necklace. “We’re going to learn all about kinematics and advanced robotics. And whatever else you want, of course—I don’t have anything against the humanities.”

“Really, mother,” Niles says, looking up from where he’s been speaking in low tones with Connor. “Your next prodigy already?”

“You hush,” Amanda says, but waves him over anyway. “Come see your niece. She has the same nose as you and your brother.”

Niles seems cautious, moving on light feet as he comes to stand beside the chair Amanda’s sitting in. “I don’t see how you can tell who she favors,” he says. “All babies look the same when they’re this age.”

Amanda barks out a laugh and levels him with a look. “You’ve clearly never seen an ugly baby, then.” She turns back to Willow and brushes down the tiny wisps of dark hair around her ears, fond and gentle. “This child’s hair is going to curl right up, mark my words.”

“You think?” Hank asks, tilting his head to one side to look at his daughter. He thinks of Cole, swiftly and instantly, the image of a newborn with hair so light it was nearly translucent flashing in his mind—so different but still somehow the same.

“I know it,” Amanda says, and then carefully stands so Niles can take his turn in the chair. She puts a pillow in his lap and lowers Willow down with ease, supporting the baby’s head until Niles’ larger hand is there to replace hers.

“Hello,” Niles says, for lack of anything else. Even if he seemed initially unprepared to be handed an infant, he peers down into Willow’s face with all sincerity and is quiet for some time.

Amanda has already gone back over to fuss around Connor and pull something from her bag for Hank when Niles reaches up to swipe under his eyes with his free hands and says, a little hoarsely, “She’s beautiful, you two. Congratulations.”

Connor grins, looking a little misty behind his glasses himself. “You’ll be next, you know,” he says. “I just conveniently blazed the trail, like I always do.”

“I don’t know about that,” Niles murmurs, though he looks back down at Willow as his face breaks into a tiny smile.

  
  
  
  


Fowler stops by a few hours after Amanda and Niles leave, brandishing a bag of gyros and a small mountain of Greek salad. For Connor, it’s still a little strange seeing Jeff outside the precinct at times, but he’s all laughter and smiles and clapping Hank on the back before he asks to hold the baby for himself. Jeff is a father of three—all girls—with one grandson already on the way, and something of a natural when it comes to babies.

The issue of Hank taking leave had been touch and go for a couple weeks, with new cases coming across their desks every day, but by the time Fowler’s headed back to work he beckons Hank out into the hall and tells him not to worry, they’ve got things covered at the bullpen for the next week at least.

“You deserve this time, Hank,” Jeff says, hitching his hands into his pockets. Quiet rests between them in the sterile recovery ward for a moment, and then he draws in a pinched breath. “Anybody who’s been around—since, well. What I’m saying is, we all agree, and nobody’s put out about you taking a few days off. Shit’ll keep running like it always does.”

“Smoother, even,” Hank tries to joke, but Jeff waves him off.

“Matter of fact, may be wise to keep you on desk duty for a while when you come back,” he adds, giving Hank a meaningful look but still keeping his voice low enough that Connor couldn’t hear. “Not anything disciplinary, of course, just as a precaution when she’s still so little, y’know? So you’re not getting tied up in anything too deep.”

Hank tries not to think about any of it, but nods anyway and says his thanks. He feels slightly sick, watching Fowler’s back as he heads down the hall to the elevators. Not because of anything one of his oldest friends and Captain said, but the nature of his job and the inherent risk of going into work almost every day, even outranking most beat jobs as Lieutenant. The unspoken implication of him somehow not being around to see his child grow, even if Jeff hadn’t outright mentioned as much, is enough to make his stomach turn.

Later that evening, Hank finds himself hesitating to leave Connor even for the hour it would take to go home and feed the animals.

“I could call Ben to go over and take Sumo out real quick,” he says, lingering between the bathroom and the doorway. “It wouldn’t kill him to throw some cat kibble in a damn bowl.”

“We’re fine here, honey,” Connor says, looking up from the tablet in his lap. Willow is asleep in her bassinet, quiet and fed for now, and shouldn’t stir again for a couple more hours at least. “I’m not going anywhere fast. Take the car and go have a shower at home so you feel better.”

Part of Hank wants to argue but he doesn’t even understand _why_ , when Connor is being perfectly reasonable. His mouth hangs open, caught between anxiety and irritation, but no words come out. He feels foolish. He feels like he needs a drink. He feels like he never wants to take his eyes off his husband or their baby ever again.

“You—you’re right,” Hank says at last, wiping a broad palm down over his mouth and beard. “I’ll go. No reason to bother Ben when it’s just a quick drive out of town and back.”

So he goes, feeling a little crazed the whole lonely walk down to the parking garage, but once the car starts and he’s back on the freeway it’s not so bad, and his heart isn’t thumping as hard anymore. Sumo dances all around him like usual when he walks through the front door, though he tires and settles quickly once he’s gone out to do his duties in the yard. His sniffs at Hank’s arms slowly and intently once they’re back inside, like he knows something’s different but hasn’t placed it just yet.

“That’s your new sister,” Hank murmurs, ruffling the dog’s ears. His throat feels a little tight saying it out loud, because there was once a time when Sumo had a little brother, too. “I think she’s coming home tomorrow.”

Tuesday has apparently been feeling lonely, because she follows Hank into the bathroom and sits on the toilet tank the whole time he’s in the shower. She’s growing fast, somewhere in that lanky weasel phase cats go into between kittenhood and adulthood, and meows curiously from time to time until Hank gets out to dry off.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, watching her big green eyes from the corner of his vision, and once he’s stepped into his boxers he relents and stoops over to scratch around her ears. “You’re not the baby anymore, huh? That’s life, kid.”

Hank sits in the kitchen while Sumo and Tuesday eat their dinner, sipping a beer even though it’s been at least a week or more since he last cracked one open. He has a quick cold cut sandwich, something he makes himself, and the simplicity of it is refreshing. Connor had been right; it was good to be back home, and he can’t wait until they have the baby here with them.

After Sumo goes out one more time, Hank tells them goodnight and locks up the house. Texts Connor that he’s on his way back, and does he need anything along the way?

 _Nope_ , comes Connor’s answer a minute later. _Just you.  
  
  
_

* * *  
  
  


In the morning Dr. Simmons drops in to give Connor the all-clear for takeoff, and shortly before lunchtime they’re packed up with the baby and on the road back to their little house outside Detroit.

Niles had dropped in early before work to feed and water the animals again, but Hank lets Sumo out to romp about and huff before he helps Connor out of the car. The dog immediately subdues, like he senses that Connor’s in no real shape to play or roll around. He sniffs at him a bit and whines while his second dad strokes the velveteen fur on his ears.

“I know, old man,” Connor says, both of them watching Hank pull the car seat out. “You have to be easy around the baby, okay? Be gentle.”

Sumo smells the baby’s socked feet poking out from under the blanket, first one and then the other. His tail wags, breezing lower to the ground, and then he looks up at Hank and Connor with his greying face tipped a little to the side in silent query. _Who’s this?_

“Good boy,” Hank says, patting the dog’s head before they head for the front porch. “You did good.”

It’s a strange, almost surreal afternoon despite the relief of being back home again. Willow does as any other newborn is wont to do, whether she’s at the hospital or at home: she sleeps, she eats, she cries, and then has a blowout diaper in the brand new onesie Tina gifted them at the baby shower.

“Might need to hose this off outside,” Hank says lightly, gingerly folding it up and placing it in a plastic bag to deal with later. Connor looks only vaguely horrified where they’re standing shoulder to shoulder at the changing table in the nursery, pulling out fresh wet wipes by the handful. “At least we’ve got that first big initiation over with.”

But afternoon fades and the sky darkens quickly, and by early evening Connor’s barely keeping his eyes open. He’s still on pain pills but has already been cutting them in half, much to Hank’s dismay. He watches Connor down one with a glass of water after they eat dinner, and then wince with every step as he goes upstairs to check on Willow.

The hospital nurses had sent them home with some pads and bandages and all manner of post-partum paraphernalia, but it’s not enough to last more than a day or two and Hank figures he may as well go and get an initial supply run over and done with now while he’s out picking up Connor’s last script at the pharmacy.

“You need anything special while I’m out?” he asks for what feels like the millionth time in just a few short days, but this time Connor actually debates the question for a long moment, getting a far-off look in his eyes before he answers with, “Lasagna.”

And so Hank gathers the needed essentials his last few brain cells not dedicated to baby thoughts could think to pick up at the store: milk, bread, newborn formula, some gauze dressing, a pack of peanut butter cups and a frozen Stouffer’s lasagna ready to shove in the oven. The baby shower had made them more than well-stocked on diapers and everything else the baby may need until she’s six months old or maybe even sixteen—looking at the amassed surplus in the nursey, Hank doesn’t know just yet.

Hank shoots Connor one more text to make sure he’s got everything before heading home, but no answer ever comes back. He waits a few minutes and then calls from the parking lot, waiting while the phone rings into dead air on the other side of the line and then clicks over to voicemail.

Hank drives a little faster than he’d like, after that.

Sumo isn’t there to greet him at the front door when he walks in from the cool spring night, quickly stepping out of his boots on the mat while plastic grocery bags rustle along his arm. The house is quiet save for the low sound of the TV playing in the living room, an unusual scene given the quiet murmur of chaos since they arrived home with the baby that morning.

“Con,” Hank says softly as he walks into the living room after dumping the bags off, just loud enough for Connor to hear him without waking the baby. No answer and nobody in sight, save for Tuesday, sleeping blissfully on the heated blanket they’d plugged in behind the couch earlier that evening. “Connor?”

Hank moves quickly, footfalls landing hard on the carpeted hallway as he makes his way up the stairs to the second landing. The nursery is dark and empty and when he shoulders into the master bedroom doorway he sighs in immediate, palpable relief, finding Connor sitting up in bed with the slumbering baby in his arms, head lolled back and gently snoring while the lamp casts them over in golden light.

Sumo is there beside the bed, big head resting on his front paws while he keeps watch. The sight is sweet enough that Hank only stands there and soaks it in for a moment while his thudding heart quiets in his chest and fills with warmth instead.

He shuffles around Sumo and kneels down on the carpet despite his protesting joints, palm stroking the dog’s fur while he gently touches Connor’s elbow. “Babe,” he whispers. “I’m home.”

Connor snuffles and opens his eyes with a half-start, immediately relaxing when his sleepy gaze lands on his husband’s face. Willow moves and makes a tiny sound but sleeps on, nestled there between Connor’s arm and side.

“I must’ve dozed off,” Connor says, reaching up with his free hand to rub around his eyes before he fumbles around to look for his phone. “What time is it?—oh shit, you’ve been calling me.”

“Time for you to hand her here and go take a hot shower before bed,” Hank says, reaching to take the little bundle Connor helps pass into his big hands. When the baby is tucked against his chest he stands with care and a slight grimace, holding her safe and close. “I think I’m ready to call it a night.”

Connor stands slowly himself, hand clasped low on his abdomen, and drops a kiss on Hank’s shoulder before getting some fresh night clothes out of the dresser and padding into the bathroom.

When he’s gone and the water starts running, Hank settles on his side of the bed with their daughter, easing back against the pillows and holding her tiny body there along the crook of his right forearm. Her rosebud mouth works some while she dreams, pink and perfect. He touches the soft hair at the crown of her head because it’s hard to resist. Her eyes are closed but they’re still as blue as blue can be, and even though Hank had snorted the night before and reminded him that almost all little babies are born with murky blue eyes, Connor had been resolute in his convictions: “I think I’d recognize _these_ blue eyes in particular staring back at me, Henry Anderson.”

After a few minutes Hank gets up and carefully settles Willow down in the bassinet, making sure to take the little stuffed lamb out and set it aside for now. He moves around the room and changes into a pair of sweatpants before turning down the bed, yawning long and wide as the clock turns over to half past nine. One hell of a Friday night, but he wouldn’t trade it for the whole world.

When Connor comes back into the room and joins them again, freshly showered and smelling like warmth and clean soap, he sits on the edge of the bed and begins unwrapping one of the gauze dressings they’d brought home. Pulls the waist of his pajama pants down a bit and winces some at the sight with a soft sigh.  

Hank reaches across the bed, the two middle fingers of his hand skimming low on Connor’s back. “How’s it feeling?” he asks, letting his hand fall into the sheets even though his thumb still strokes along the side of Connor’s thigh. “Let me see.”

Connor turns to look over his shoulder, tired profile as handsome as ever in the low light. His lashes dip and then he maneuvers around on the bed, stretching out there next to Hank with the cotton dressing dropped between them. He pulls his shirt up to his belly button and snorts when Hank leans in closer to peer at the line of finely knotted sutures, apparently hard of seeing with his reading glasses forgotten somewhere in the living room.

Hank doesn’t touch the healing scar, but he bows over and presses a soft kiss to the delicate skin at the edge of the caesarian line. Then another, further up Connor’s belly and one more against the jut of his hipbone. Connor scrunches up his nose but smiles, pushing his fingers through Hank’s hair while his husband finishes unwrapping the gauze and gently presses the adhesive edges over the healing wound.

“Beautiful,” Hank says, tugging Connor’s shirt back down before scooching up the bed to press their lips together. “How did an old crone like me ever get so lucky?”

“Must’ve been your kind heart and devastating good looks,” Connor hums while he leans further into Hank’s arms, pretending to look thoughtful for a moment. “Or maybe it was just your big dick.”

Hank sputters out a laugh at that, growling as he leaves an open-mouthed kiss on Connor’s neck, whiskery and warm. They’re both too tired for this to lead anywhere, and Connor’s still healing, but the promise is there for later. “You gotta come up with a better story than that for the kid,” he says, content to just hold Connor close for now. “She’s gonna have to believe in fairytales and romance and all that shit, y’know.”

A little whine sounds from the bassinet and they both fall quiet, listening and waiting. Sure enough the whine turns into a sniffle, and then a few moments later a small cry rings out. Sumo is up like a shot and immediately at Connor’s side of the bed but looking directly at Hank, expression turned urgent while his tail thumps. _Aren’t you going to do something about this?_

The baby’s cries grow louder and Hank stands to go get her, shushing her and holding her close while he paces the room. When she quiets down again he bypasses the bassinet and brings her back to bed, sliding into the sheets next to Connor.

“We could always just tell her the truth,” Connor says quietly after a few moments, eyes on their daughter’s face. “That’s always been fairytale enough for me.”

Hank makes a sound low in his chest that’s not quite a laugh, though he’d meant for it to be. His smile wavers at the edges and in the end it’s easier to turn his face and drop a kiss into the top of Connor’s damp hair than it is to say anything else on the matter.

“Love you,” he rasps, forever thankful in ways that he can’t begin to fathom or comprehend sometimes. But for now he holds his little family close, Connor and their baby, perfect as could be, and looks forward to everything that lies ahead.  
  
  



End file.
